What others say
about MARYAM JAMEELAH'S book
ISLAM VERSUS THE WEST
Maryam Jameelah (formerly Margaret Marcus) is quite a
well-known figure in the Muslim world now. This book, comprising various
essays by her, some of which were written even before she formally, embraced
Islam. Starting with the story of how she got interested in Islam when in New
York, the book is by and large a critical survey of the writings of modernist
Muslims like Mr. A. A. Fyzee of India and Ziya Gokalp of Turkey. The writings
of orientalists like Mr. Wilfred Cantwell Smith have also been critically
examined. Maryam Jameelah is a great admirer of al Ikhwan al Muslimin of
Egypt. The two Muslims of this century highly praised by her are Sayyid Qutb
and Allahyarham Muhammad lqbal. Towards the end of the book she has also
treated in a philosophical vein such topics as the prohibition of pictures
and the significance of "Taqdir." The book ends with a negative
answer to the question, "Is Westernization inevitable?" The book is
well bound and deserves wide publicity.
The Radiance Viewsweekly, Delhi,
In this
collection of essays, she makes a brilliant analysis of the folly and
futility of compromising the principles and spiritual values of Islam in a
vain attempt to prove their compatibility with the material aspirations and
drive or aggrandizement that set apart the spirit of the modern West. She is
firmly opposed to the so-called westernizers within the fold of Islam and
with eloquent reasoning, she argues that Islamic society can flourish and
contribute its own in a technocratic civilization without having to sacrifice
the inner principles of its being.
Dawn, Karachi,
ISLAM AND MODERNISM
It goes to the credit of an American-born convert that
she made a searching criticism of the philosophical sources of western
materialism, modern philosophy, and the fallacy of modernism. Showing the
futility of the apologetic approach of Muslim modernists towards Islam, she
demands that they should put an end once and for all interpreting Islam through
foreign criteria and summon the courage to stand up and defend an
unadulterated Islam. She upholds Islam in its pure form and stresses the
necessity for a re-evaluation of Islamic history in that light. Written in a
bitter tone but lucid style, the book makes very useful reading.
The Pakistan Observer, Dacca.
The book is extremely readable and thought provoking.
Also it contains a number of seminal generalizations, each one of which asks
for a book. Like all true Muslims, the author combines practice with
preaching. Her photograph at the beginning of the book shows her enveloped
from head to foot in Islamic Purdah. This eminent lady has proved that
Purdah, if observed according to Allah's laws, cannot impede women's mental
development but in fact is a sign of her dignity and nobility.
The Criterion: Journal of the Islamic Research Academy,
Karachi
ISLAM IN THEORY AND PRACTICE
This is the inquiry of a restless soul, courageous and
bold, frank and forthright, promising and challenging. The day of Islamic
supremacy, this American-Jewish convert pleads, shall not be far away if only
the Muslims realize their destiny, live up to the ideals of Islam, strive to
uphold the Word of Allah in every walk of their lives to establish Islam in
its entirety in political, social, economic cultural and all other aspects.
Then Islam would be a living force and not just an academic proposition. As
in other writings of hers, Maryam Jameelah is at her best when she takes to
account Western philosophy, thought, ideals and practices. Her advantage is
that she was brought up and nurtured in Western society and educated and
trained in the Western tradition, so naturally she is better fitted to know
its dark spots and the mainsprings of evil which have polluted Western
society and which are now corroding the foundations of Muslim society with
its obnoxious influences. The personalities, movements and parties dedicated
to the cause of the revival of Islam, particularly in our own age, have been
very ably summed up and the penetrating eyes of the author have been able to
assess remarkably well the real worth and status of persons and parties of
the recent past and present. Few writers on Islam have that balanced outlook,
that courage to speak the truth, that integrity of mission, that maturity of
thought and detailed grasp on the subject which this American-born lady
displays in her short, terse essays.
The Criterion, Karachi.
ISLAM VERSUS AHL AL KITAB PAST AND PRESENT
Really! Amazing! Incredible! What? - are exclamations
that come out often as one feels the impact of this great exposure and
indictment of Zionism and the Christian church. The author conveys much of
her points by the very words of the people she talks about. To avoid quoting
out of context, she uses many lengthy extracts. The result is a very fair,
balanced and objective presentation. None can deny that this is the greatest
assault on Judaism and Christianity both in theory and practice coming from a
Muslim pen for a very long time. How has she set about it? Firstly, it must
be mentioned that the author's history places her at a position of advantage
to perform such a task. She grew up in a Jewish family, a member of the
Jewish minority in Christian America and then embraced Islam. Being a near
insatiable bibliophile as well entitles her to a claim of inside knowledge of
the three faiths. All these assets are brought into good use here. The
lengthy chapter on Judaism is a well-documented outline of Jewish beliefs,
culture, complexes, deviations and history. The author provides an analysis
of the background to the rise of Zionism and how a racist religion, garbed
with modern political and military sophistry and bred on the support of
Western treachery and collusion, has grown into the menacing monstrosity of
Zionism. The second chapter contains the post energetic refutation of
Christianity that I have ever come across. It is a historical, a moral, an
academic and indeed, an outright refutation of Christianity. The author
answers the usual Christian accusations against Islam with even greater
vehemence. In this, one sees how much she detests the apologetic approach of
answering back. Rather she throws the whole table on the Christians. She
gives a lucid and highly informative analysis of the aims and moods of
operation of the Christian missionary. The last chapter rounds off
beautifully her arguments against racist Judaism and neo-imperialist,
man-made Christianity. She presents Islam as the only authentic religion
through which mankind can be united. This book is Maryam Jameelah's best work
to date.
The Muslim: Journal of the Federation of Student Islamic
societies in the United Kingdom and Eire, London.
AHMAD KHALIL: THE BIOGRAPHY OF A PALESTINIAN ARAB
REFUGEE
This nicely printed book has much to commend itself to
readers. Since the story was written by a convert from Zionism who herself
witnessed all the ups and downs, her treatment of the whole tale is superb.
Besides the elements of suspense and surprise, vivid description and good
characterization sustain the reader's interest at high pitch. The plot from
beginning to end is so well woven that the reader's interest never sags. The
pen-portraits of Ahmad Khalil, his brother, Khalifa and his cousin, Rashid
are very well drawn and life- like.
The Pakistan Review, Lahore
Religious exaltation is well known but faith has its
depths too when overwhelmed by suffering, pain and defeat, man is sustained
by Allah's love. Ahmad Khalil in parts successfully conveys the quiet piety
of those who live in true humility before Allah. The book catches the
religious dignity or the common Muslim family living next to the soil where
women are modest and hardworking and the men brave and industrious. The
characterization of the sensitive boy, Khalifa, whose life is haunted by the
brutality of the Israelis, shows that the author is capable of presenting
psychological realities. Many people in the West believe that the Israelis
have a better right than the Arabs to Palestine because they are
"progressive" and have made the desert bloom. The poor and the
backward deserve the worst that comes to them. Ahmad Khalil is a stirring
repudiation of this theory of "progress".
The Criterion, Karachi.
_________________
Preface
Soon after I began a prolonged and concentrated study
(at the age of nineteen) of Islamic literature existed in English
transliteration, in order to obtain more intimate knowledge at first-hand,
what it personally meant to be a Muslim, and more detailed information
about current events in the Muslim countries than what was ordinarily
available in newspapers and magazines, I began correspondence with a dozen
young people in Arab world and Pakistan. Most of these pen friends did not
last long because I soon grew bitterly disappointed with their westernized
mode of living, their indifference and sometime outright hostility towards
Islamic faith and culture and their childish minds. Finally I decided to
develop correspondence with mature and influential Muslim leaders,
especially among the Ulema. By the close of 1960I had exchanged letters
with Dr. Fadhil Jamali, formerly chief delegate of Iraq at the United
Nations, Dr. Mahmud F. Hoballah, then the Director of the Islamic Center in
Washington D.C., the late Shaikh Mohammad Bashir Ibrahimi, chief of the
Algerian Ulema and the soul of the struggle for freedom against French
imperialist domination; Dr. Mohammad el-Bahay of al-Azhar, Dr. Hamidullah
of Paris, Dr. Maruf Dawalibi, noted authority on Islamic Law, Professor of
the Shariah at Damascus University and ex-Prime Minister of Syria; Dr. Said
Ramadan, head of the Islamic Center in Geneva, and was trying my hardest to
make contact with the late Sayyid Qutb Shahid, at that time serving a long
prison sentence in Egypt.
Although the activities of the late Shaikh Hassan
al-Banna and al Ikhwan al Muslimun had received abundant (though of course,
derogatory) publicity in the New York press, Maulana Maudoodi and the
Jama'at-e-Islami had not yet attracted much attention from American
scholars or journalists. Although for nearly a decade, I had been an avid
reader of all books and periodicals in English I could find on Islamic
subjects, I had never heard of Maulana Maudoodi and knew nothing whatever
of the Jama'at-e-Islami until I came across Mazharuddin Siddiqui's essay in
Islam the Straight Path (edited by Kenneth Morgan, Ronald Press, New
York,1958 ). When by sheer chance I found an excellent article in The
Muslim Digest, Durban, under the same name, at once I was eager to
correspond with a man with such uncommon merits, and wrote to the editor of
the magazine for his address.
I penned my first letter not expecting any more than a
single brief reply expressing mutual sympathy for commonly shared ideals.
Then I could not possibly foresee that this correspondence would mark the
most crucial period in my entire life history.
Maulana Maudoodi had no need to persuade me to adopt
Islam as I was already on the threshold of conversion and would have taken
the final step even without his knowledge. Neither did Maulana Maudoodi
exert any decisive impact upon the direction of my literary career. Because
I had begun to write essays in defense of Islam more than a year before our
acquaintance and the main outlines of my ideas were already firmly
established long before we knew of each other's existence. Nevertheless, as
a result of this correspondence and consequently a vast increase in
knowledge and insight, I grew more articulate and my writings gained in
depth and maturity.
These letters should be read keeping in view their
historical background. In America, John F. Kennedy was President and the
country had reached unprecedented heights of political power and economic
prosperity. The so-called "Cold War" between Communist Russia
under Khrushchev and the Western democracies had just begun to thaw. In Pakistan,
President Ayub Khan ruled unchallenged and in order to make his
dictatorship secure, had imposed martial law and banned all political
parties, including the Jama'at-e-Islami. God-fearing Ulema were being
harassed and intimidated for daring to criticize the high handed and
arbitrary enforcement of the un-Islamic Family Laws Ordinance against the
will of the overwhelming majority of the people.
After three and a half years of costly and fruitless
psychoanalysis, and two years of hospitalization, I was just emerging from
a long, unhappy adolescence filled with loneliness and frustration and was
searching to find myself and my proper place in life. It was only due to
all-Merciful and Compassionate Allah that at this stage, Maulana Maudoodi
gave me the opportunity for a useful life rich in fulfillment by providing
the fertile soil from which my endeavors could grow and achieve their
fullest expression.
Maryam Jameelah
Jumada al-Thani14 ,1389
August28 ,1969
|
First letter in
Dec5 ,1960
New York, December6 ,1960
Dear Maulana Maudodi,
Your splendid article entitled "Life After
Death" which appeared in the February 1960 issue of The Muslim Digest
of Durban, South Africa was by far the best and most convincing I have ever
read on the subject. When I first read about you in Mazharuddin Siddiqi's
contribution to Islam the Straight Path (edited by-Kenneth Morgan, Ronald
Press, New York,1958 ) about Muslims in Pakistan, even though the author
was a typical modernist who described you in derogatory terms, I
immediately felt myself in complete sympathy with your cause.
During the past year I have discovered that I want to
devote my life to the struggle against materialistic philosophic-secularism
and nationalism which are still so rampant in the world today and threaten
not only the survival of Islam but the whole human race. With this goal in
mind, I have already written a number of articles, six of which have been
published in The Muslim Digest and The Islamic Review of Woking, England.
My first article entitled "A Critique of Islam in Modern History"
written by Professor Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Director of the Islamic
Institute at McGill University, Montreal, refutes point by point his
arguments that secularism and westernization are compatible with Islam and
that Kemal Ataturk's "reforms" in Turkey offer the most desirable
model for other Muslim countries to copy. My second article entitled
"Nationalism A Menace to the Solidarity of Islam" shows how
incompatible and irreconcilable is modern concept of nationalism to the
universal Ummah or brotherhood of Islam. My third article which appeared in
the June 1960 issue of The Islamic Review and the August 1960issue of The
Muslim Digest is a refutation of Asaf A. Fyzee's (vice-chancellor of
Kashmir University) arguments for a westernized Islam, reformed and
"liberalized" to the point where it becomes nothing but empty
ethical platitude having no impact upon the shaping of society and its
culture. Other articles I have written refute the Turkish sociologist, Ziya
Gokalp who tried to hoodwink his readers into believing that nationalism
and secularism are compatible with Islam (Kemal Ataturk derived his
inspiration directly from him); Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan who took for his god,
nineteenth century European science and philosophy, Ali Abd ar-Raziq who in
his Islam and the Principles of Government written just after the abolition
of the Ottoman Khalifate, tried to show that the Khalifate was never an
integral part of Islam and therefore that religion must be completely and
permanently severed from the state. President Habib Bourguiba who last year
attacked the fast of Ramadan as responsible for hindering Tunisia's
economic development and Dr. Taha Hussain, blind Egyptian intellectual and
author who in his Future of Culture in Egypt argues that Egypt is an
integral part of Europe and therefore complete westernization and
secularization is a necessity. All these so-called Muslim
"Progressives" are far more dangerous than any external enemies
for they are attacking the very foundations of Islam from within. In
writing my articles, my aim is to open the eyes of my Muslim readers to
this fact.
Present day secularism, nationalism and materialism
are derived from the philosophers who provoked the French Revolution such
as Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieux and others like them. Fanatic haters of
all religion, they were responsible for the belief that man can progress
and achieve salvation without God. The illusion that man is not dependent
upon God and that there is no Hereafter, led to the belief that immaterial
progress in this life is the supreme goal of the human race. Without this
deadly anti-religious atmosphere, such creeds as Marxism, Fascism, Nazism,
Pragmatism (as advocated by John Dewy) and Zionism (which caused the Palestine
tragedy) could never have taken root. I plan to write another article about
this, offering an explanation in greater detail[1].
Perhaps you are wondering who I am. I am a young
American woman, twenty-six years of age who has become so intensely interested
in Islam as the only hope for the world that I want to become a convert. My
big problem is that there are hardly any Muslims in the suburb of New York
where I live and I would feel so terribly isolated. That is why when I saw
your article in The Muslim Digest, I wrote to the editor of the magazine
for your address, hoping that you will correspond with me. Please send me,
if you can, some samples of your writings, particularly the pamphlet you
wrote some years ago entitled The Process of Islamic Revolution. Since we
share the same ideals and are working toward the same ends in our work, I
would like to enjoy contact with you and help you as much as I can in your
endeavors.
Yours most respectfully,
Margaret Marcus
[1] See "The Philosophical Sources of Western
Materialism" in my book, Islam Versus the West.
|
Second Letter
in Jan21 ,1960
Lahore, January21 ,1961
Dear Miss Marcus,
Assalam alaikum
Your letter dated December5 , 1960 reached here when
I had left for Saudi Arabia in response to an invitation extended to me
by King Ibn Saud. The King wishes to establish an Islamic University in
Medina and he had invited me to prepare a scheme for the same. So I had
been away from home for about a month. On my return I received your
letter and the three cuttings of your essays. I cannot over-emphasize how
pleased I was to read your letter and essays.
I have intentionally addressed you in the opening of
my letter with the phrase, "Assalaam alaikum" which is the form
of greeting peculiar only to Muslims. The reason is that although you are
still only thinking about your conversion, I am certain that you are
already a Muslim. A person who believes in the unity of God, in Muhammad
as His last Prophet and in the Holy Quran as His word and in the life Hereafter
is really a genuine Muslim regardless of whether he or she was born into
a Jewish, a Christian or a pagan home. Your ideas bear witness to the
fact that you believe in the above-mentioned truths. Therefore I regard
you as a Muslim and my sister-in-faith. No baptism or any proselytizing
ritual before a priest is needed in order to enter the pace of Islam. If
you are convinced of the truth than is Islam, you need only to affirm
solemnly that "there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is His Prophet."
Then you should adopt some Islamic name (i.e. Ayesha or Fatimah) and make
a public announcement of your name and religion so that the Muslim world
at large should come to know that you are a member of the great
fraternity of Islam. Then you should begin to offer the five obligatory
prayers daily and follow other Islamic injunctions steadfastly. I find
you quite on the threshold of Islam and only one firm step forward will
bring you into the fold of the believers. I think this final step will be
a natural and logical culmination of your ideas.
My personal assistant has sent you several
pamphlets, including the one you mentioned. In addition, I am sending you
some more books written by me. When I was reading your articles, I felt
as if I am reading my own ideas. I hope your feeling will be just the
same when you read my books. And this, despite the fact that there has
been no previous acquaintance between you and me. This mutual sympathy
and unanimity in thought has resulted directly from the fact that both of
us have derived our inspiration from one and the same source.
These westernized Muslims over whose lack of Islamic
spirit you are lamenting, are the worst products of western colonialism
in Muslim countries. The greatest blow of colonialism which was administered
against us was not in the field of politics or economics but in realm of
the mind and spirit. This imperialism has produced many mental slaves
among our ranks whose souls even after our political independence remain
subjected to the West and who are faithfully following in the steps of
their former masters. From this viewpoint, I think our war of liberation
has not ended as yet and we have to fight a long-drawn battle against
such indigenous foreigners.
And now I cannot help expressing my pleasant
surprise at one thing. I want to know precisely how and where a young
American girl could arrive at such a clear and genuine conception of
Islam. Could you find some time to write a brief story of your mental
evolution and send it to me? I quite understand your feeling of
loneliness for lack of an Islamic society. No doubt this is the most
acute agony for a Muslim in a non-Muslim country. But it might give you
some consolation to know that in the present world, every true Muslim is
sharing these pangs of loneliness with you, though it may be to a lesser
degree or in a somewhat different way.
If you ever visit Pakistan, it will be my pleasure
to meet you and welcome you as my guest. How delightful it would be for
me and my family if you could manage to come and keep with us the fast
of' Ramadan (falling this year from February17 th to March18 th)! I will
be in Lahore until the end of March. Then I intend to tour Africa where I
wish to organize Islamic missionary work there, inshallah. I will return
to Lahore by the end of May. I plan to remain in Lahore for the remainder
of the year so whenever you come, you will find me at my home.
Your brother-in-Islam,
ABUL ALA
|
Third letter
in Jan31 ,1961
New York, January31 ,1961
Dear Maulana Maudoodi,
Several days ago I received your gift of English
books and Pamphlets which amounted to a small library. I cannot begin to
thank you enough, only to tell you that I will keep them and treasure
them always. Just yesterday I received your letter in which you told me
that when you read my articles, it was as if you were reading your own
ideas. I assure you that when I read your books and pamphlets, I felt as
if I were reading my very own thoughts only expressed more forcefully and
comprehensively than I perhaps ever could write. My two latest articles
have been one about the poetry of Allama lqbal[2], the only man in the
entire contemporary world of Islam who has been able to express in poetry
of enduring artistic value what it truly means to be a Muslim and the
other entitled, "The Philosophical Sources of Western
Materialism" in which I trace the development of Western materialism
from its inception in ancient Greece, through the "Renaissance"
to its culmination in the form of ideologies like Communism. In the
latter I try to show that the evils we are witnessing today are the
logical result of a trend lasting more than five hundred years. All the
major leaders of Western thought were ardent materialists; in fact, the
whole theme of modern Western civilization was its revolt against the
Church and ultimately all religious and spiritual values. Thus,
materialism is part of the very essence of the West. The leaders of Asia
and Africa, as you so aptly pointed out in your pamphlet, Nationalism and
India, have been simultaneously taught to despise their native heritage
and imbued with the philosophies of materialism. Filled with hatred and
resentment against their former Western masters, they are merely flinging
the garbage right back into their faces! I mean this as a description of
violent upheavals taking place in Asia and Africa now, particularly in
the Congo. After what I have read of the violence going on in Africa, I
fear for your safety. It is extremely painful for me to read how such
Muslim countries as the United Arab Republic slavishly copy Communist
Russia and China in their foreign policies in Africa. I would like to be
sympathetic with such countries as the United Arab Republic but can
discern nothing which could be called Islamic in the policies of its
government. A gullible Muslim might like to rejoice in the efforts Nasser
is making to promote the cause of Islam in Africa. But it is clear beyond
doubt that he is not so much interested in furthering the case of the
Faith than merely using it as a slogan instrumental in the extension of
his own personal glorification and prestige. It is my deep and sincere
conviction that your understanding of Islam as you present it in your
books, Towards Understanding Islam and Islamic Law and Constitution as
well as all the pamphlets (you were so kind to send me) is the only
correct interpretation and I hope I will not be considered narrow-minded
to say so. I respect you and what you do because you adhere to Islam in
its pristine purity and refuse to compromise to propitiate the whims of
the "times" or adulterate it with alien philosophies. As you
present Islam in your writings, I believe this is the superior way of
life and the only road to Truth. Tragically, there are many Muslims who
disagree. Many the time I have met young Muslim students studying in New
York colleges and universities who try to assure me that Kemal Ataturk
was a good Muslim. And that Islam must submit to the criteria of contemporary
philosophies and any Islamic principle or practice that conflicts with
modern Western culture must be discarded. Such thinking is praised as
"liberal", "forward-looking," and
"progressive" while those who think as we do are branded as
"reactionaries" and "fanatics" who refuse to face the
realities of the day.
One point in your booklet, Nationalism and India
which deserves special mention was your opposition to Muslims wearing
Western clothing. Many would dismiss this as a trivial matter but I consider
it of the utmost importance. Did not the Holy Prophet himself say that,
"whoever imitates the unbelievers is one of them"? I think that
the Muslim should feel proud to express the fact in his distinctive
physical appearance. That is why whenever I see a Muslim leader dressed
completely in Western clothing and clean-shaven, I cannot help but
consider his faith defective because in his dress, he is advertising to
the world that he is ashamed of his true identity. Have you ever read
Islam at the Crossroads by Muhammad Asad which takes up this subject at
length?
It is not surprising why you should be astonished
how a girl born into a typical American home could adopt Islam so now I
will tell you how it happened.
When I was ten years old, attending reformed Jewish
Sunday school, I soon became enthralled with the tragic history of the
Jews. I was particularly fascinated with the story of Abraham and his
sons, Ishmael and Isaac; of Isaac who was supposed to be the father of
the Jews and Ishmael, the father of the Arabs. Not only were the Jews and
Arabs originally kindred peoples but their history is intertwined at many
periods. I learned that under Muslim rule, Particularly in Spain, that
the Jews experienced their Golden Age of Hebrew culture. Being ignorant,
of course, of the sinister nature of Zionism, I naively thought that the
Jews of Europe were returning to Palestine in order to become true
Semites again and live like Arabs! I was very excited by the prospects
that the Jews and Arabs would co-operate and together create a new Golden
Age such as occurred in Spain.
Throughout my adolescence I suffered from what
amounted to social ostracism in school because I liked to spend so much
of my time reading books in the library and had no interest in the opposite
sex, parties, dancing, cinema, clothes, jewels or cosmetics. I thought
that smoking cigarettes was a vulgar habit and a waste of money. Despite
the fact that one must drink at parties to be socially acceptable and my
parents consider moderate indulgence in wine inseparable from the
"good things of life", I have never touched liquor. Since I
shared few interests in common with the girls and boys my age, I had
almost no friends throughout the eight years of junior and senior high
school.
During my second year at New York University, I met
a young girl also from a Jewish home who had decided to embrace Islam. As
passionately interested in the Arabs as I was, she introduced me to many
of her Arab and Muslim friends in New York. She and I attended the same class
taught by a Jewish rabbi which was entitled "Judaism in Islam."
The rabbi tried to prove to his students under the guise of
"comparative religion" that everything good in Islam was
borrowed directly from the Old Testament, the Talmud and the Midrash. Our
textbook (Judaism In Islam, Abraham I. Katsh, Washington Square Press,
New York,1954 ) written by this same rabbi set down the second and third
Surahs of the Quran verse by verse, tracing their origins from alleged
Jewish sources. Interspersed with this was a liberal sprinkling of
Zionist propaganda in many films and colored slides glorifying the Jewish
state. Ironically enough, instead of convincing me of the superiority of
Judaism over Islam, this course converted me to the opposite view.
Despite the fact that in the Old Testament, there are some universal
concepts of God and high moral ideals as preached by the Prophets,
Judaism has always retained its tribal, nationalistic character. Despite
some noble idealism, the Jewish scripture is like a Jewish history book
and their God a tribal god. The narrow-minded parochialism has found its
modern expression (although in a thoroughly secular form) in Zionism. The
Premier of Israel, David Ben-Gurion believes in no personal,
super-natural God, never attends synagogue, and observes no Jewish laws,
customs or rituals yet he is considered, even by the most pious and
orthodox of Jews, to be one of the greatest Jews of our times. Most
Jewish leaders consider God as some super real-estate agent who parcels
out land for their exclusive benefit! Zionism has made the worst aspects
of modern Western materialistic nationalism its very own. Only such a
philosophy of expediency and opportunism could justify in their minds
such a ruthless campaign to exile the majority of Arabs and trample on
the pitiful minority who remained in "Israel" and then style
themselves as the bearers of "progress" and
"enlightenment" to a "benighted" Arab world! Although
"Israel's" scientific and technological development is
superior, this material advancement combined with the most reactionary
tribal, "chosen people" morality, I believe is a major threat
to the peace of the world. I once heard Golda Meir address the United
Nations General Assembly; "I oppose anybody who disputes Israel's
right to security by retaining all Arab territories occupied by conquest.
The only ethics that concerns us is the survival of Jewish people in the
Jewish State!" (Never mind, Mrs. Golda Meir, about the survival,
much less the well-being of any other people!) Then too, I soon
discovered that Jewish scholars nursed even more enmity towards the
Prophet Muhammad than the Christians. The hypocrisy of reformed Judaism
was equally unacceptable. Thus although of Jewish origin, I cannot
identify my ideals and aspirations with the Jewish people.
As neither of my parents are observant Jews and are
the most firmly convinced of the necessity for American Jews to think,
live, look and behave exactly like other Americans. After two years of
the Jewish religious school, I was enrolled in the educational system of
the Ethical Culture Movement founded by the late Dr. Felix Adler in the
closing decades of the19 th century. In your booklet, The Ethical
View-point of Islam, you referred to this agnostic humanist movement
which rejects the supernatural foundation of moral values, regarding them
are purely related man-made. I attended weekly instruction at the Ethical
Culture school for four years until I graduated at the age of fifteen.
From that time until I entered Rabbi Katsh's class at New York University
in October1954 , I was a thorough going atheist and contemptuously
dismissed all organized Orthodox religions as superstition. One day in
class, Rabbi Katsh gave the students a lecture where he argued why all
the ethical values cherished as the universal inherent right of every man
are absolute and God-given and not man-made and relative as I had been
previously been taught to think. I forget the specific arguments but only
remember that they were so logical and convincing to me that this marked
the turning point of my life.
As I studied the Quran more and more deeply, I began
to realize why Islam and Islam alone had made the Arabs a great people.
Without the Quran, the Arabic language would probably be extinct now. At
best, minus Quran, Arabic would be as obscure and insignificant as Zulu!
All other Arabic literature and culture owes its existence to the Quran.
Therefore Arabic culture and Islam are inseparable. Without the latter
the former would have no international importance.
Although my parents can't understand my antagonism
against the culture in which they raised me and especially my hostile
feelings about Zionism, they give me the freedom to lead my own life. At
first they tried to discourage my involvement in Islam, fearing that this
would alienate me from them and the rest of the family. But now that they
see how determined I am, they assure me they will not try to stop me from
conversion or put any obstacles in the way of leading the life that makes
me happy. Even though they hold contrary views to mine on almost
everything, they are tolerant and broadminded enough no matter how much
they may disapprove, never to threaten to disinherit me or cut their
ties. What a contrast to Orthodox Jewish parents who consider a child who
embraces another religion as dead!
Yesterday I went to the Islamic Foundation in New
York, where the Imam, Dr. Nuruddin Shoreibah, who is a graduate of
Al-Azhar, is now teaching me how to recite the five daily prayers in
Arabic in preparation for the fast of Ramadan which I intend to undertake
for the first time.
Whether it is best that we work together or
independently is for you to decide as we both stand for the same ideals.
On the basis of what I have written you in this lengthy letter, I would
be most grateful for any suggestions you have to offer.
Respectfully yours,
MARGARET MARCUS
[2] See my article about Allama Iqbal in Islam
versus the West.
_________________
|
Fourth letter
in Feb25 ,1961
Lahore, February25 ,1961
Dear Miss Marcus,
Assalaam alaikum warahmatullah
Your detailed letter dated January31 st arrived here
a bit late. I am sorry that I failed to send a prompt reply due to some
unavoidable preoccupations. I am afraid all this delay has put you to
inconveniences for which I must offer my apologies.
I studied your life-sketch with great care and
interest. As I read it, I came to realize how an open and unbiased mind
can find access to the Right Path provided it makes a sincere and steady
effort. The story of your sufferings, tribulations and mental anguish
contained nothing unexpected for me. If a person is passing through a
constant implacable conflict with his social surroundings and is at a
loss to find even a single trace of sympathy or appreciation in his
mental or moral environment, it would be unusual indeed if his or her
nerves do not undergo a final collapse. Your maladjustment is a natural
consequence of the incompatibility between you and your society. Your
temperament and taste, your ideas, your habits and conduct all are
fundamentally different from those peculiar to the society you live in.
The constant friction could have done you much more harm than what it
really did. You seem to be just like an Equatorial sapling implanted into
the Arctic Zone and you had to face the inevitable. Every person can best
grow and shine in a favorable atmosphere. In a hostile climate one is apt
to lose or dubbed to have lost one's mental balance and all one's
capabilities are likely to wither away. Similar are the reasons for your
being still unmarried. Your society can not like the type of woman that
you are. All your merits are considered as defects there. You cannot
possibly find a true life-companion in your present set-up, and if you
are artificially tied to a person there, it could hardly prove to be
desirable or successful matrimonial arrangement.
Ever since your first letter, I have been pondering
over your problems. I think that you must choose between two
alternatives. Either you should start to work openly for Islam in America
and gather a group of sympathizers and co-workers around you or you
should migrate to a Muslim country, preferably Pakistan. Now for me, it
is not easy to decide which alternative would be best suited for you. It
depends upon your circumstances and aptitudes which you know better. But
this much I can say that if you come to live in Pakistan, you will find
yourself amidst many like-minded people barring the language difference.
God-willing, you will receive here all moral as well as material support
and encouragement. Moreover, there is every likelihood here that you may
find a virtuous young Muslim to be your life-companion. When you are in
Pakistan, I can offer every possible help to you but I am sorry to say
that I am unable to assist you in your passage from America to Pakistan
because of the very stringent restrictions on foreign exchange here.
I do hope that your parents as your well-wishers
will not stand in the way of your choice. They should not fail to keep in
view the fact that if their daughter is forced to live in inclement
weather, not only will she be doomed to lead a life of despair but there
is every danger of nervous breakdown. On the other hand, if she is fortunate
enough to find a friendly and suitable social atmosphere, her mind will
be restored to full health and vigor and she will be able to lead a
useful and productive life. I think once they are able to grasp this
point fully, no resistance will be encountered on their part. Rather, it
is not improbable that they will welcome my suggestions.
You have asked me about the book, Islam at the
Crossroads. I have read that book along with other writings by Muhammad
Asad and I had the opportunity of personal acquaintance with him when
after accepting Islam, he settled in the Indo-Pak sub-continent. Perhaps
you may be interested to know that he is also of (Austrian) Jewish
origin. I have great respect for his exposition of Islamic ideas and
especially his criticism of Western culture and its materialistic
philosophies. I am sorry to say, however, that although in the early days
of his conversion, he was a staunch, practicing Muslim, gradually he
drifted close to the ways of the so-called "progressive" Muslims
just like the "reformed" Jews. Recently his divorce from his
Arab wife and marriage to a modern American girl hastened this process of
deviation more definitely. Although these melancholy facts cannot be
disputed, much less justified, yet I cannot blame him too much for this.
At the time we met during the first years after his conversion, very
welcome and pleasant changes were brought about in his life. But once man
beings to live the life of a true Muslim, all his capabilities lose their
"market value." It is the same sad story with Muhammad Asad,
who had always been accustomed to a high and modern standard of living
and after embracing Islam, had to face the severest financial
difficulties. As a result, he was forced to make one compromise after
another. Still I hope that despite these adverse changes, his ideals and
convictions have not altered even though his practical life has suffered
many modifications. Our Holy Prophet Muhammad (God's blessings be upon
him) once said that a time would come when to follow his ways would be
like holding a live coal in one's hands. This prophecy has been
fulfilled. Now a day's if a man or woman tries to practice the teachings
of Islam, stiff resistance is encountered by materialistic civilization
at each and every step. The whole environment turns hostile to such a
Muslim. Either he must be forced to compromise or he will constantly be
at loggerheads with society. The strongest and most steady nerves are
indispensable for such a resolute and unremitting struggle.
Have you contacted the Islamic Centers in Washington
D.C. or Montreal, which may be useful for you? The address of the Islamic
Center of Montreal is as follows: (The Islamic Center, 1345 Red Path
Crescent, Montreal-2, and Quebec, CANADA).
Thank you for expressing your sincere anxiety for my
safety as regards my forthcoming African tour. Fortunately the parts of
this continent to which I am presently planning my journey are quite safe
and peaceful. I intend to go to Somaliland, Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika,
Zanzibar, Mauritius and the Republic of South Africa, all of which
contain large communities of Indo-Pakistan and Arab Muslims and with
their help, I hope to further the propagation of Islam in Africa.
I quite understand your bewildering thoughts about
President Nasser. Far from being a defender of Islam, his cruel hands are
drenched deep in innocent martyrs' blood. By ruthlessly crushing al
Ikhwan al Muslimun, he has administered an irreparable blow to the
Islamic forces in the Arabic-speaking world. He his at least four tongues
in his mouth. When he speaks to the Egyptians, he says, "We are the
sons of Pharaoh" (and he sets up in the public squares of Cairo
gigantic statues of Remeses II - that cursed Pharaoh of oppression). When
he speaks to the Arab world, he says, "We are part and parcel of a
single glorious Arab nation." When he addresses the Africans at
large, he tries to become their self-styled exponent and mouthpiece.
Recently he has started to trumpet the "Voice of Islam" over
Radio Cairo because it suits his convenience and strategy. Unscrupulous
adventurers like him can never serve the cause of Islam. Only selfless,
sincere, modest and uncompromising Mujahids, who are ready to sacrifice
every personal gain and ambition and lay down their lives at the altar of
Islam, can do this.
I am extremely happy to know that you have become an
observant Muslim and have begun to offer daily prayers and keep fast on
Ramadan. I congratulate you for this and pray to Allah that He may you
keep always steadfast and progressing on the path of Islam.
Sincerely yours,
ABUL ALA
|
Fifth letter
in Mar8 ,1961
New York, March8 ,1961
Dear Maulana Maudoodi,
I received your last letter of February25 th which
made me so happy to read your detailed and thoughtful reply to all the
things which have for so long weighed heavily upon my mind.
Enclosed is a photo-essay from Look Magazine about
the latest fashions in women's dress, which to me are so repulsive that I
refuse to conform and would rather be struck dead than seen wearing it.
American and European fashion designers appear to do all they can to make
the modern Western woman look like a street- walker. Even professional
prostitutes do not go to the extremes of these so-called
"respectable" women. Oscar Wilde stated the truth when he once
said that fashion is something so ugly, it has to be changed every six
months! One of the functions of clothes, of course, is modesty and, as
you can see from the pictures in the article, modern Western fashions for
women are designed exclusively for commercialized sex. One of the very
first things I did after accepting Islam and saying my prayers, was to
lengthen all my skirts. My relatives were most surprised to see me
wearing skirts almost to the ankles when all the women are wearing their
dresses above the knee. There is loud propaganda in American popular
magazines about the increasing "emancipation" of women in
Muslim lands due to the impact, of course, of Western education and the
mass-media. Although I believe that every woman should be educated for
the fullest use of her intellectual capacities, I certainly question the
advantages of taking women out of the home (particularly those with young
children) to compete in business offices and factories with men and
substituting nurseries and kindergartens for a home upbringing. This is
exactly what has happened in Soviet Russia and Communist China where the
so-called "emancipation" of women is being deliberately used by
the rulers to destroy the family, lesser degree, a similar situation
exists in my country. To a lesser degree, a similar situation exists in
my country.
What you said about Muhammad Asad in your last
letter shocked and saddened me deeply. I never suspected even from his
most recent writings and letters to me that he was not a staunchly
observant Muslim. I can never forget that splendid chapter in his book,
Islam at the Crossroads, about the necessity for Muslims to strictly
follow the Sunnah as well as the Quran if Islam is to survive and
flourish. His arguments for the authenticity of Hadith were so sound and
convincing, and his deep feeling for Islam so evident, despite what you
told me about his financial difficulties, I couldn't help but wonder why
he changed his mind. I pray to Allah that such a thing will never happen
to me.
Could you please describe in some detail the program
you outlined for the new Islamic University of King lbn Saud? At first I
thought that the university would be modeled on the pattern of al-Azhar.
But just a few days ago I read an article which said that the proposed
university would be essentially secular, patterned on Western lines with
Islamic studies only a small and incidental part of the curriculum. The
same article described King lbn Saud's plans to rebuild the entire
cities, of Mecca and Medina. Although I know that so many of the ancient
buildings in the holy cities are antiquated and in desperate need of
repair, I only hope that the new buildings will be constructed in
conformity to the Islamic style of architecture because the whole
atmosphere in these places would be ruined if they are copied from the
ultra-modern fashions. Personally I abhor modern architecture because it
conflicts with every criteria of beauty, symmetry, grace and warmth.
Every time I visit the United Nations headquarters (which is an
outstanding example of modern architecture) I am repelled by the
bleakness, barrenness and coldness of the high-rise buildings which look
like nothing more than giant boxes with glass windows. I think that the
contemporary architecture which is giving our cities an uglier face every
day, is a prefect reflection of the rejection of all spiritual values by
those who design them. Far better for Mecca and Medina to remain old and
even dilapidated than go the way of our modern cities.
Although I knew nothing about the Islamic Center in
Montreal until you told me about it in your last letter, ever since its
completion in 1957, I have kept in constant contact with the mosque in
Washington. Last summer I made a special trip to Washington just to see
it and talk with the Director, Dr. Mahmoud F. Hoballah whom, like Dr.
Shoreibah, is a graduate of al-Azhar. The Washington mosque was built in
conformity to traditional Muslim architecture and is as beautiful as any
elsewhere in the world. The only thing, which saddened me, is that the
Washington authorities do not permit the Adhan to be called from the
minaret lest that annoy the non-Muslim residents in the area as a "public
nuisance!" And the mosque is only for the Jumaa prayers. Attendance
as far as I could observe for the five daily prayers is almost nil.
Do you know about the campaign against the fast of
Ramadan being carried on by the President of Tunisia, Habib Bourguiba? He
claims that the fast is injurious to health and is responsible for
Tunisia's economic backwardness because industrial production slows down
during that period. Those who insist on observing the fast are maligned
as "reactionaries." The chief target of President Bourguiba's
venom is 'the Rector of Zaituna University which has for centuries a
major center of Islamic education in North Africa. I have read in the
newspapers that in the Soviet Union each year as Ramadan approaches, the
Communists intensify their propaganda against Islam. Communist propaganda
for domestic consumption never fails to stress the economic
destructiveness of Ramadan, arguing that a factory or farm worker
exhausted from fasting or a Muslim who stops work to say his prayers is sabotaging
national productivity. Even though Habib Bourguiba is supposed to be such
a great friend of the Western democracies, he uses exactly the same
tactics against Ramadan as the Communists.
Do you know the Orientalist, Dr. Wilfred Cantwell
Smith who is Director of the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill
University in Montreal? If so, did you ever read his book, Islam in
Modern History, the theme of which is Islam as the Holly Prophet preached
and practiced, is "out-of-date" and must accept secularization
and modernization if it is to survive in the future? In the chapter about
Pakistan, here is what he has to say about you:".....Maudoodi would
present Islam as a system, one that long ago provided mankind with set
answers to all its problems rather than as a faith in which God provides
mankind anew each morning the riches whereby it may answer them for
itself... Modern tendencies would view Maudoodi's system as dated, as
inadequate in scope and too rigid in form to represent faithfully those
imperatives for today and would seek the truth of Islam more in the realm
of values, dynamics and spirit... Furthermore, to judge from his own
expositions, it would appear that he aims at imposing his system on
Pakistan, if he can contrive to get his group into a position of power,
also in a rigorously systematic fashion Maudoodi evinces but scant
concern both for the human beings and their individual welfare who would
live under his rule, His ideology seems to make little Allowance either
for the wishes and even the integrity of the ruled or for the propensity
which men in positions of authority have all too often demonstrated
through human history to distort even the finest of schemes by individual
aberration... Maudoodi's movement is a compromise and an adaptation between
previous Islamic history and the demands of modern life from which he
abstracts for his static pattern, rather than a creative vision...."
Since I know that when this letter reaches you, you
will be too busy with your preparations for your tip to Africa to answer,
I will not be expecting your reply until after you return to Lahore at
the end of May.
Sincerely yours,
MARGARET MARCUS
|
Sixth letter
in Apr1 ,1961
Lahore, April1 ,1961
Dear Miss Marcus,
Assalaam alaikum wa rahmatullah.
Your letter dated March8 th had arrived here
promptly but I could not reply earlier due to my indifferent health.
Since the middle of Ramadan, I have been suffering from a severe and
constant pain in my right shoulder and no treatment as yet has given me
relief. Doctors have finally advised me to have a deep X-ray treatment.
I have read your letter with much interest. The
pictures of American feminine dress sent by you are no news for me. We
usually see European and American women here in Lahore in a similar
fashion. I have seen Arab women in Cairo, Beirut and Damascus moving
about in this very same kind of dress. I simply cannot imagine how a
woman with any sense of decency could thus attire herself even in her own
home before her nearest relatives, not to speak of going out like that. I
am very much pleased to know how much you despise this form of dress. If
you manage to learn Arabic or Urdu and study direct the detailed
instructions which the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of God
be upon him) has given pertaining to women, I hope you will find them
exactly corresponding and appropriate to the real womanly nature. The
social role which the Western woman is being made to play, is not in
reality "emancipation" but perversion and enslavement and as a
result of false and misleading propaganda, women are trying to
"de-womanize" themselves. They think it is degrading to fill
their natural place in life and to perform the tasks assigned to them by
nature. Instead they seek honor in manly pursuits. Western civilization
has proved to be very cruel to its womanhood. On one hand, it wants woman
to bear the burden of nature single-handed and on the other hand, this
civilization calls her out to perform the multifarious duties of a man.
Thus she has been squarely placed between two grindstones. Moreover this
same propaganda has enticed women in such a way that they feet they must
make themselves more and more attractive to the opposite sex and thus
outrage their decency by wearing scanty dress or even nudity. They have
been turned into play-things in male hands. Islam has proved to be a real
benefactor to women because it has associated each woman to a single man
and has absolved her from all other men. Islam sets a high value on those
pursuits, which are assigned, to her by nature. Western civilization on
the other hand has made her the slave of numerous men and has attached a
false notion of disgrace to all tasks truly befitting a woman.
Your information about the Islamic University of
Medina is not correct. The curriculum, submitted by me and approved by a
committee appointed by the King, provides for the teaching of Quran,
Hadith, Fiqh, Kalam, and Islamic history combined with European
philosophy, jurisprudence, history, economics, politics and comparative religions.
One European language -either French, English or German-will be
compulsory. The education visualized in this scheme can neither be
labeled "secular" or "religious" in the narrowly
accepted sense of these terms. We intend that this University will be
different from modern colleges or old-fashioned madrassahs and shall
occupy a unique place all its own. We wish to produce such Muslim
scholars well versed in Islamic teachings combined with modern knowledge
so they will be competent to apply Islamic principles to the problems of
contemporary life.
Like all other Muslim lands, Saudi Arabia is now the
scene of a head-on clash between two conflicting civilizations. The
discovery of oil has brought limitless and undreamed wealth and the
flood-gates to Western civilization have thus been thrown open. Modern
Riyadh is rising like a true replica of Western capitals in the Arabian
Desert. Similar is the case of Dhahran and Jeddah. Even Mecca and Medina
are also in the process of being "modernized". In such a critical
state, if we fail to produce first-rate scholars who can equip Arabia
with the requisite intellectual and practical leadership, this sanctuary
of Islam, I am afraid, will be swept away by the same surge of
materialistic culture which has already wrought havoc in Turkey and now
Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Indonesia and Pakistan are experiencing its
deadly grip. I think it is our foremost duty to rescue the center of
Islam from this rising peril.
President Habib Bourguiba of Tunisia is faithfully
following in the footsteps of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk of Turkey. All these
so-called modern leaders of Muslims have played the most treacherous game
in their respective countries. When they launch a struggle for political
freedom from Western imperialism, they appeal to Muslims in the name of
Islam but as soon as these leaders manage to capture power, they make
religion their scapegoat for national "backwardness" and
mercilessly stamp out every manifestation of Islamic thought and culture.
All such persons are the products of imperialism. They have no knowledge
or appreciation of Islam. They have been educated and brought up in
England, France or other European countries. Many of them have European
wives (Bourguiba also has a French wife). In their daily life and behavior,
they are exact prototypes of Western people. Muslims had to accept their
leadership in order to win their political liberty and now these
Europeanized leaders are trying to remove the last vestige of Islamic
civilization from their realms in order to make their political power
strong and secure.
Dr. Wilfred Cantwell Smith and I met face to face in
1958 when he presented to me a complementary copy of the book you
mentioned in your last letter. These people are unsuccessfully trying to
manufacture a new Islam for us and are vainly hoping that we will abandon
the true Islam of the Quran and Sunnah and accept the version fashioned
and tailored by themselves, unaware of the fact that all their efforts
are doomed to fairer. A Muslim must remain a Muslim in the genuine sense
or that word and God forbid, if he breaks away from the pure and pristine
Islam, he will choose a mid-way course between the two and the chances of
survival for a Luke-warm Islam are very dim indeed.
I am wonder-struck at the folly of the Western
powers. On the one band, they want the Muslims to fight against communism
because it is a godless creed while on the other band, they regard true
Islam as a menace and so try to de-Islamize Muslims and encourage every
kind of heresy and apostasy. What a pity these people do not understand
what the inevitable results of their blunder must be. They always
encourage those elements that are infusing un-Islamic values into the
Muslim countries, and never tire of condemning those persons who are struggling
to revive the true spirit of Islam - they malign as
"reactionaries" and "fanatics". Not content even with
such diatribes, they make the modernist leaders instrumental in
persecuting those Muslims who are working for an Islamic awakening. God
only knows what will ultimately happen due to such unwise and misguided
attitudes on the part of our Western critics.
Dr. Wilfred Cantwell Smith and his counterparts
among ourselves should rest assured that there is not even the remotest
possibility that the majority of Muslims will accept this new version of
"Islam" as genuine and would believe in it. Thank God, the
original sources of Islam -the Quran and Sunnah- are still to be found
intact and unalloyed. So long as even a single Muslim is left in the
world having direct access to these basic sources, no counterfeit and
unauthorized editions of Islam can ever gain currency among Muslims.
My journey to Africa will probably be postponed to
July because my failing health does not permit me to travel. Furthermore,
my African friends think that my tour would be more profitable if I go
there when the election excitement has calmed down in Kenya and political
tranquility prevails there once more.
With salaams and best wishes,
Sincerely,
ABUL ALA
|
Seventh
letter in Apr12 ,1961
New York, April12 ,1961
Dear Maulana Maudoodi,
I was shocked to learn that you could not make the
trip to Africa because of bad health and that you have been ill for
almost two months. I only hope that the doctors will find an effective
treatment to relieve the pain. Suffering such pain, it must have required
much effort on your part to type such a detailed letter to me and
replying to all the questions I asked you to my satisfaction.
These days it seems that one is constantly bombarded
by radio, television and the press about the necessity for "raising
the standard of' living" and "economic development" in the
so-called "under- developed" countries. In order to do this,
foreign aid on a massive scale from the United States or the Soviet Union
is deemed essential. The so-called "economic development" of
the so-called "under-developed" countries has become an
obsession. Economic development of "underdeveloped" countries
is interpreted to mean urbanization, industrialization and mechanized
agriculture. Practically speaking, the slogan of "economic
development" is simply an instrument for spreading Westernization
and the wholesale destruction of the indigenous cultures of Asia and
Africa. The need for eliminating illiteracy and spreading education is
always emphasized but always now-a-days in this context, education means
modern secular education along purely Western lines stressing technology.
Islamic means for attaining social justice and a more equitable
distribution of wealth such as Zakat, the inheritance laws, the Waqf
foundations and the prohibition of interest on capital are entirely
ignored. The Only movement in recent times I know of which has attempted
to achieve social justice according to Islamic methods is the banned
Ikhwan al Muslimun founded in 1928 by Shaikh Hassan al Banna.
During my adolescence I used to be very much excited
by the ideals of such United Nations organs as UNESCO (the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) because I have always
been internationally-minced and interested in furthering cultural
exchange and better understanding between the different peoples of the
world. But lately, I have begun to take a dim view even of UNESCO. I have
read all its publications ever since its inception when I was a child of
twelve back in 1946 and although they are supposed to be completely
objective and impartial, they are just as prejudiced against the Islamic
way of life as any other Western periodicals. In fact, I have come to
look upon the United Nations agencies as only one more means for
spreading Westernize and modern materialism. The first Director of UNESCO
was none else than Sir Julian Huxley, the grandson of the celebrated
English biologist, Sir Thomas Huxley, and is the author of a number of
books notorious for their atheism and materialism.
The last chapter of my novel, Ahmad Khalil: The
Biography of a Palestinian Arab Refugee was published as a short story
both in the March 1961 issue of The Islamic Review in 'Woking' and The
Ramadan Annual of the Muslim Digest from 'Durban'. Since then I have
received a number of letters from Muslims objecting to my sympathetic
portrayal of the "traditionalist", "medieval" Arab
life like wearing native dress, eating with fingers from a common dish,
sleeping on a rug or mat on the floor, etc. They insist I have done great
harm to the Arab cause by portraying my characters living in such
"backwardness." What you do think?
I think that the modern-educated ruling elite in
Asia and Africa are so obsessed with the mania to "develop"
their respective countries not because they really care about the
personal welfare of the poor but rather because they are ashamed of them!
They shudder with the most acute inferiority complex every time their
countries are labeled as "backward." I think the mania for
industrialization stems not from any real positive benefit the country
would gain but because big factories and huge dams and hydroelectric
plants would increase their prestige and respect on the part of the
"advanced" countries. Nations are no different from individuals
who strain every nerve to accumulate as much wealth as they can just so
they can show if off and boast about it. The Holy Quran sums up this
attitude beautifully when it says: "Know that the life of this world
is only play and idle amusement, pomp and mutual boasting and multiplying
in rivalry among yourselves riches and children." This Quranic verse
is even truer today than it was in the Prophet's time.
Now I can understand why belief in the Hereafter is
such an essential part of Islam and why it is emphasized in almost every
verse of the Quran. As soon as one begins to have faith in the Hereafter,
the values of this world considers supreme immediately lose their
importance. Belief in the Hereafter at once gives the believer a true
perspective on life so that he can distinguish between what is really
important and what is not. He or she then begins to long for the good,
which lasts eternally and not for mere material objects doomed to perish
soon without a trace behind. Belief in God's judgment in the Hereafter is
the only effective sanction behind the moral law. Minus Hereafter,
religion is meaningless. If the Hereafter is such a moral necessity, it
cannot be the product of mere wishful thinking, as the skeptics tell us,
but must be an objective reality!
I have also told you bow terribly isolated I feel
from others who share our thinking. Here in New York, there is a small
community of Muslims whom I meet at the mosque every week when I go there
for Arabic lessons. On Fridays, I go to Columbia University to meet with
a group of Muslim students from various countries (including Pakistan)
where we gather for Jumaa prayers and then a meal with discussion but as
much as my parents, their views clash with mine on almost everything.
They firmly believe that Islam must be reconciled with modern Western
civilization and its ideals and practices modified accordingly. Some even
criticizes fundamental Islamic doctrines. Many doubt the authenticity of
Hadith. Although I make every effort to be polite and tactful, I cannot
convince them and they cannot convince me. I always leave with a feeling
of frustration. My Arabic teacher at the mosque, who is a native of
Cairo, told me that he regards the fact of his being an Egyptian as
important as his being a Muslim. He assured me that, far from being an
artificial import from the West, nationalism is inborn in the hearts of
all men everywhere.
Now I want to ask you what can be done about this?
Thus far since November1959 , I have written a number of articles
defending this viewpoint and had them published in various
English-language Muslim magazines, but this is not enough. Besides
writing, I would be very grateful if you could tell me what practical
work along these lines you have done and are doing now.
With every prayer for the improvement of your
health, I send my salaams to you and your family.
Sincerely,
MARGARET MARCUS
|
Eighth letter
in May19 ,1961
Lahore, May19 ,1961
Dear Miss Marcus,
Assalaam alaikum wa rahmatullah
I received your letter of April12 th and again I
must apologize for delaying my reply, the reason being, as you already
know, my failing health and over-work. After a prolonged illness, I was
finally given deep X-ray treatment and thank God I have almost recovered.
Only weakness remains.
I read with interest the cutting from The Islamic
Review of the short story from your novel that you enclosed with your letter.
You have painted the most accurate picture of the impact of Western
materialism upon the Arab Muslims. I have seen with my own eyes similar
influences on Arabian life during my last visit there and I discussed
these matters with Islam-loving thinkers and reformers. The comments you
have received on your story do not surprise me in the least. Even sincere
Muslims fear that Westerners and modern Muslims will react with
repugnance when such a "retrograde" picture of Islam is
presented to them. Your first reaction to such adverse opinions will
naturally be mingled with dismay but you should try to understand all of
this. If you persevere patiently in propagating the truth of Islam, you
are sure to succeed in your efforts eventually and win converts on your
way. I advise you not to try to convince everybody, especially those who
do not care to listen or whose views are diametrically opposed to yours,
even though they may be your own dear parents. Allah tells us:
"Admonish if admonition is profitable." You should always try
to seek out such souls as are able to rise above purely materialistic
conceptions and appreciate higher spiritual and moral values. Unless you
first succeed in reaching such persons, you will feel alone and isolated
in the wilderness of materialism and constant quarrels or arguments with
hostile or apathetic people will tend to create pessimism in your mind.
Of course, it is natural that the so-called
"under-developed" countries should want to put an end to their
backwardness as quickly as possible and catch up with the Western
countries in the race for material progress. But the tragedy is that aid
from rich countries is bringing a deluge of Western culture in its wake
which is a deadly menace to our religion, our morality, our civilization
and culture-in short, everything near and dear to us which makes our
lives worth living. Furthermore, the leadership in Muslim countries is in
the hands of those persons whose minds are completely vanquished and who
venture to re-interpret the laws of the Shariah despite their meager
knowledge. Such a situation is doubly dangerous. It not only poses a
threat to Islamic patterns of thought and behavior but also there is
every possibility of Muslim countries falling into the lap of Communism.
When the Muslim peoples witness their sacred and sublime values of life
being trampled under-foot and when nothing but grossly materialist ideas
are left for which they could life and die, then surely the Muslim world
will be fertile soil for Communist propaganda, infiltration and
conspiracies. I think that American foreign policy will suffer
irreparable reverses in Muslim countries. It may meet the same fate here,
it has encountered in China and all its donations in cash and kind may
fall into the hands of the enemy. The deep-rooted prejudice against Islam
and their hatred for Muslims among Americans and Europeans have blinded
them even to their own loss!
The question you asked me at the end of your last
letter is an important question indeed! This is indeed precisely the
question, which I have been trying to solve for the last thirty-five
years. I began my efforts towards understanding Islam and working for its
revival when I was a youth of twenty-three and ever since then, I have
dedicated my whole life for this task. I never had any faith in mere
defensive tactics or a rear-guard action. I have launched a
three-proponed offensive. On the one hand, I have ruthlessly attacked -
the ideological foundations of Western culture. On the other hand, I have
expounded as fully as I know how, the ideological bases of Islam. I have
explained at great length what an Islamic way of life and how in every
respect it is superior to Western ways mean. Thirdly, I have offered
practical Islamic solutions of important problems which previously even
observant Muslims could see no alternative but to follow the West. As a
result of this work, there are millions of Muslims in Pakistan and India
from every walk of life who share with me the zeal and yearning for an
Islamic order. About twenty-five of my Urdu books have been translated
into Arabic and a large proportion of the Muslim public in the
Arabic-speaking countries appreciate and sympathize with my ideas. I bow
my head before Allah and praise Him for all this. Unfortunately, as yet
very few of my works have been translated into English. If you could
learn Urdu, I think that my books would help you in your fight for Islam
in America.
I wonder if you know that since 1941 an
organization, Jama'at-e- Islami, has been working in the Indo-Pak
sub-continent. Jama'at-e-Islami strove to propagate and implement the
ideology that I have presented in my writings. After Partition in1947 ,
this organization was also split into two separate
parties-Jama'at-e-Islami Pakistan and Jama'at-e-Islami Hind. President
Ayub Khan has banned the former along with all other political parties
since the promulgation of Martial Law in1958 ; the latter is still
working in India under its own independent leadership. I have told you
this story to impress upon your mind the fact that in order to gain some
positive results; it is necessary to struggle patiently for many long
years. Moreover, to achieve success in a cause, it is essential to equip
oneself adequately in the intellectual as well as the moral sphere. It is
a hard, unremitting struggle all the way. You have just begun. I fully
realize how difficult and painful it is for a young, unmarried female
convert to work for Islam in a country like America, but when you have
embraced Islam and have clearly grasped the duties it entails, you should
seek the help of Almighty Allah and try to assume all the
responsibilities He has chosen to give you. The more serious and sincere
you are in your efforts, the greater the help you will receive from your
Lord which will come from sources and ways you and could not possibly
imagine beforehand.
I must confess that with my indifferent health, I am
compelled to perform multifarious duties. Daily I have much to read and
write and every day many people write me letters and come to see me, so
if I am late in replying to you, do not mind and continue to keep me
informed about your welfare and activities. I am keenly interested in
your struggles and trials for Islam. I also want to publish in my Urdu
monthly, Tarjuman ul-Quran, extracts of your essays and letters,
omitting, of course, intimate personal details. I hope you have no
objection to that. May I ask you whether you have assumed an Islamic
name?
With salaams and best wishes.
Sincerely yours,
ABUL ALA
|
Ninth letter
in May29 ,1961
New York, May29 ,1961
Dear Maulana Maudoodi,
Assalaam alaikum.
I was very happy to receive your letter of May20 th
and feel relieved to know that you are recovering from your illness. I
hope you will feel well soon again.
You have my full permission to print in your
Tarjuman ul Quran any part of my letters or articles you may wish.
Of all the letters I have received commenting on my
short story, yours was the only one that showed an appreciative
understanding of what I was trying to say. As I already told you, this
short story is the concluding chapter of my novel, Ahmad Khalil: The
Biography of a Palestinian Arab Refugee which I began to write back in
August 1949 at the age of fifteen. The first part deals with his early
childhood in a small village in southern Palestine, his home,
surroundings and the various members of his family, ending with their
tragic expulsion from their homes during the 1948 Palestine war and the
total destruction of the village (and with it, an entire way of life) by
the superior military might of the Zionists. The second half begins when
Ahmad Khalil, now eighteen years old, has been married for two years,
decides to leave the refugee camp and without Government permission,
takes the surviving remnants of his family to make the pilgrimage to
Mecca "illegally" and once there, he decides to make Medina his
permanent home until it would be possible for him to return to Palestine.
The remainder of the novel concentrates on his cousin, Rashid who was
throughout his life his inseparable friend and companion, his
mentally-ill younger brother, Khalifa, the growing cruelty and unbelief
of his only surviving son, Ismail, and his adopted son, Abdar-Raziq, a
blind theology student of al-Azhar who became his sole comfort. The first
part of the story emphasizes the evils of Western materialism in the
guise of Zionist imperialistic aims and the concluding chapters, the
harmful effects of the oil industry in Saudi Arabia as it affects the
daily life and the ultimate fate of this Arab Muslim family. My novel
expresses the same ideas as your own books, only in story-form. For
obvious reasons, (aside from its literary merit or lack of it) Ahmad
Khalil would be highly unpopular here and I would not stand a chance with
American publishers.
Now I am full of plans to compile another book,
which will be entitled, Islam Attacked from without and Within: An
Anthology of Anti-Islamic Propaganda. My aim here will not only show in
detail how Islam in all its aspects has been attacked by Western
"orientalists" and westernized Muslims from within; I want
above all else, to expose the mentality of our adversaries. It does us no
good merely to condemn our enemies. In order to fight our enemies
effectively I think it is essential for us to understand them and to know
how their minds work. Psychology is one at the most fascinating subjects
and I want to apply its principles here so we can know specifically what
motivates these people to do as they do. Among the authors I intend to
quote at length are Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Director of the Islamic
Institute at McGill University in Canada, H. G. Wells, famous English
historian, Arnold Toynbee, William Douglas, judge now serving on the
American Supreme Court, Julian Huxley, biologist and former Director of
UNESCO from 1946-1948, Albert Schweitzer, Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt and John
S. Bandeau, former professor at the American college of Cairo and now
serving as American Ambassador to the United Arab Republic. Among the
Westernized Muslims I will include Ziya Gokalp, Dr. Taha Hussein, and
Asaf A. Fyzee, vice-chancellor of Kashmir University. Each quote will be
preceded by a few introductory paragraphs and followed by a detailed
commentary. At the beginning of the anthology I want to write a long
preface and at the conclusion a lucid and concise epilogue.
I have just read a most illuminating book by the
late Muhammad Ali, formerly the head of the Lahore Ahmadiyya movement
entitled The Anti Christ Gog and Magog which explains why the prophecies
of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him)
could only mean the domination of Western materialism over the world. As
regards my apprehension that so-called "technical assistance"
for the "economic development" of the
"under-developed" countries only means the spread of Western
materialism, our Holy Prophet knew this perfectly when he is reported to
have said:He (the Dajjal) will give them (the needy Muslims) to eat but
he will also make of them unbelievers.
Unfortunately, the whole book was ruined at the end
when the author tries to convince his readers that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of
Qadian was the promised Imam-i-Mehdi.
For the last several months I have been trying to make
contact with Sayyid Qutb who, as you know better than anybody else, has
been imprisoned under Nasser ever since al Ikhwan at Muslimun was banned
in 1954. Although he has not been able to write to me himself, just
yesterday, I received a beautiful letter from his sister, Amina Qutb, who
told me that my letters had been delivered to her brother in his prison
cell and that she wanted to write to me on his behalf. Sayyid Qutb, a
scholar and the author of a number of books, is a great admirer of you
and specially recommended your books to me. How tragic it is that in the
so-called "Muslim" countries, Islam is much more severely
persecuted than in non-Muslim lands!
I am enclosing a copy of the weekly bulletin of the
local Unitarian Church, which my parents and elder sisters are thinking
of becoming members. Until now, I was always under the impression that
the Unitarian Church was a Christian sect, which rejected the Trinity and
the Divinity of Christ, revering Jesus as a Prophet and emphasizing the
unity of God. However, the church my parents and sister attend proclaims
an ideology no different from the agnostic humanism of the Ethical
Culture movement.
Five days ago on the Eid al Adha after the prayers,
in the presence of two of my Muslim friends for witnesses, I formally
pronounced the Shahadah, which makes me a full-fledged Muslim. Then I
received at The Islamic Mission of America in Brooklyn from Shaikh Daud
Ahmad Faisal my Islamic Certificate of Adoption. My Muslim name is Maryam
Jamilah with which I will henceforth sign all my correspondence and
writings. However, since my parents do not want to call me by my Arabic
name and the other members of my family feel the same way, I shall not
insist on it but with you and all my brothers and sisters in faith, I
shall use only any new name of which I am very proud.
Hoping that your health will continue to improve.
Yours in Islam,
MARYAM JAMEELAH
|
Tenth letter
in Jun20 ,1961
Lahore, June20 ,1961
Dear Maryam Jameelah,
Assalaam alaikum wa rahmatullah.
I received your letter dated May29 th and am
heartily pleased to know that you have become an integral part of the
great fraternity of Islam by proclaiming Shahadah and have assumed an
Islamic name. All this was a natural consequence of your ideas and convictions.
I solemnly pray to Allah that He may accept your sincerity, give you
strength to live and work for Islam and may enable you to brave your
hostile surroundings steadfastly.
I am grateful to you for your anxiety about my
health. Thank God my health has now returned to normal. Inshaallah I
intend to leave for Africa in July.
Thank you for your permission to publish your essays
and portions of your letters. I think they will serve as an eye-opener
to, the Muslim youth here, which will provide them with a striking
contrast that while they are trying to westernize themselves despite
their birth in a Muslim society, here is a young woman born in a
"reformed" Jewish home in modern America who has been
struggling for the Truth and who is striving to practice it when she has
found it out at last. I hope your example will teach them a lesson.
Please send me the manuscript of your novel Ahmad
Khalil. I will try to find the time to read it and then show it to my
publishers, Messrs. Islamic Publications Ltd. here in Lahore. I will be
pleased if they agree to print it.
Your anthology of anti-Islamic propaganda could be
very useful and instructive. There are several facts, which you should
not fail to mention. The first is that the Communists in the East and the
democracies in the West join hands in their common enmity against Islam.
Secondly, whenever there is a departure or a deviation of Muslims away
from Islam, it is acclaimed loudly in Western circles which makes the
modernist Muslims still bolder and more audacious in their
mischief-making. According to these critics, departure from Islam is
synonymous with "enlightenment" and "progress" and in
their over-anxiety to win the applause of their admirers, modernist
Muslims grow more and more zealous in their "reforms". These
only produce bitter wives of resentment among the majority of their own
Muslim countrymen. The rulers are waging open warfare against the ruled
and as a result or this continuous internal conflict; the Muslim states
are devoid of vitality. Another consequence of such an unwise attitude is
that the so-called "free-world block" is rendering its own
defense line against Communism weak and vulnerable. Thus far, Communism
has mostly persecuted the Muslims only in the countries it has over- run but
the way the non-Communist bloc is playing havoc among independent Muslim
ranks, its very goal of common defense is being defeated thereby. True
Muslims fail to see any difference between these two power blocs and they
are compelled to believe that both are in essence the same. In the
presence of such
and deep revulsion
of the overwhelming majority of the Muslim peoples, the political
alliances of the rulers are artificial and have lost all their meaning.
Now I turn to your question about the Dajjal. In
Arabic, the word Dajjal literally means fraud and cheating. From this
point of view, every fraudulent person, group or nation is Dajjal.
However, according to the traditions of our Holy Prophet, al-Dajjal (The
Deceiver) must be a single person. During the leadership of al-Dajjal as
foretold by our Holy Prophet, true Muslims will suffer severe
persecution. When I consider all the details about al-Dajjal or the
Anti-Christ in the Hadith, I am led to believe that he has not come as
yet but I think the time has arrived when this prophecy will soon be
fulfilled. I think that al-Dajjal will make his appearance in the land of
"Israel".
I am happy to learn about your contact with Sayyid
Qutb and his relations. Although we have had so far no opportunity to
meet each other face to face, yet each one of us knows the other fully.
He sent his books to me from prison and I met his brother, Muhammad Qutb
when I visited Cairo in1960 . Ordeals of fire and sword through which the
Ikhwan and in fact, all genuine Muslims everywhere must endure, should
not surprise you. When a Muslim is nursed and raised under the influence
of Kufr and he holds aloft the banner of Kufr in both hands, he goes to
such extremes in persecuting his co-religionists as even non-Muslims
would not dare to do, but sooner or later the time is sure to come when
everybody must reap what he has been sowing.
Praying for your steady progress on the path of Islam.
Sincerely yours,
ABUL ALA
_
|
Eleventh
letterin Jul11 ,1961
New York, July11 ,1961
Dear Maulana Maudoodi,
Assalaam alaikum.
Thank you for your letter of June20 th and I am
especially glad to hear that your health has returned to normal so that
you will be able to go on your African tour. I am sending you this letter
by surface post because I do not expect your reply before you return to
Lahore in September.
From what I have gathered from my reading, Africa
appears to be the brightest spot on the map so far as the prospects for
Islam are concerned. Particularly in Nigeria, under the capable
leadership of Ahmadu Bello and Abu Bakr Tawafa Belawa. Islam is spreading
by such leaps and bounds that for every pagan, who turns to Christianity,
ten embrace Islam. Although the Catholic and Protestant missionaries have
vast wealth and support behind them from the Western powers and have
monopolized education, hospitals and philanthropic works for almost a
century, they can win only a handful of converts while within the space
of a few weeks or months whole villages go over to Islam. Recently The
New York Times published an article in which the correspondent
interviewed several Roman Catholic missionaries in a Nigerian town who
informed him that most of the Africans they had baptized were now
regularly attending the local mosque and observing the fast of Ramadan. I
think one of the most important reasons for this is the fact that racial
discrimination is accepted by the Christians and all their churches are
rigidly segregated, whereas in the mosque, the African knows he will be
welcomed and made to feel at home. If Islamic missionary work could be
effectively organized in Arneric4, it would find the most fertile field
among its twenty million black people, particularly the poor, the
unemployed, the despised and the outcasts who crowd the great ghettos in
New York and Chicago.
I have included in my anthology of anti-Islamic propaganda
an editorial in praise of President Habib Bourguiba's campaign against
Ramadan that appeared in the Islamic Review which I think is disgraceful
and inexcusable. Most of the contributors to my anthology are either
connected with the American University of Beirut or the American College
in Cairo. Both these institutions are Protestant missionary enterprises
and although they actually succeed in winning very few converts to
Christianity, they have achieved great success in making the Muslim
students feel hostile towards Islam and winning them over to the Western
way of life. The other day I met a Muslim student from Saudi Arabia now
doing graduate work in the field of' education at Columbia University who
received his B. A. degree from the American University of Beirut and told
me that all Muslim students are required to attend Christian services at
the chapel. Those who refuse to go must choose the alternative of a
compulsory course in "Christian morals".
After I learned how to use the typewriter at business
school, I thought I would have no trouble finding employment as a
secretary. In my search for employment, I went first to The Arab
Information Center where I thought that my intense interest in the
Arabic-speaking countries and Islam could be of some value but as soon as
they found out that I was a Jewish convert to Islam and had no sympathy
with President Nasser or his brand of "Arabism", they gave me
such a cold reception, I never went back. Next, I visited the New York
headquarters of The American Friends of the Middle East, where the two
pretty young American girls at the front desk frankly told me that they
considered all orthodox religions as obsolete and until the Arabs put
Islam behind them and cast it off like a worn-out garment, they could never
achieve economic development or a higher standard of living. Soon I
discovered that the organizations in New York dealing with the Near East
are either controlled by the Zionists, Christian missionaries or are
purely commercial.
The other day I passed the New York Tunisian Trade
Center. Attracted by the exhibition of magnificent Hand-woven rugs and
hammered copper trays in the window, I decided to go inside and have a
look around. I never received such a shock in my life when I saw nothing
but long shelves front floor to ceiling crowded with bottles of wine,
whisky, rum and beer. I asked the lady in charge at the front desk if
these were the products of independent Tunisia. She told me that this
mass-production of alcoholic beverages both for domestic use and for
export was proof of the economic "progress" President Habib
Bourguiba had brought to Tunisia. She said that Islam was only a relic of
the Middle Ages and the sooner dispensed with, the better. Noticing the
woman's heavy French accent, I asked her if she were French citizen and
she replied vigorously in the affirmative. She told me that the Tunisian
Government employed her because President Bourguiba wished to promote the
friendliest relations with France.
This afternoon I intend to go to New York
University, where I was once a student, to have a talk with a Jewish boy
there who two weeks ago pronounced the Shahadah at the mosque. When his
mother discovered that he had embraced Islam, she took him at once to the
synagogue where the Rabbi forced him to re-convert back to Judaism. He
had no choice because his mother (his father is dead) threatened to
withhold all financial support from him if he continued in Islam. Since
he is a medical student, he will not be able to support himself for some
years to come. I can only give thanks to Allah that my parents are not so
narrow-minded and intolerant as this mother.
Eagerly awaiting your reply in September and all the
interesting details of your African journey.
Yours in Islam,
MARYAM JAMEELAH
|
Twelfth
letter in Sep29 ,1961
Lahore, September29 ,1961
Dear Maryam Jameelah,
Assalaam alaikum wa rahmatullah.
Your letter dated July11 th reached me just a few
days ago which shows how slow surface post travels from your country to
mine. The manuscript of your novel, Ahmad Khalil, arrived more than a
month ago and is now with Islamic Publications Ltd. As soon as they
return it to me, I will try to find the time to read your story and then
give you my comments.
You will be surprised to know that because the
Government all of a sudden decided to expunge the names of every African
and Arab country from my passport, I was forced to cancel my trip to
Africa. Since then I have received numerous letters from these countries,
as well as Pakistani protesting against such arbitrary restrictions on my
movements abroad. The only people who are happy about this are the
Christian missionaries and Qadianis who regard Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of
Qadian (India) as a new prophet and consider every man or woman who does
not believe in him as kaffr.
Without any proper organization or financial
support, Islam has been steadily gaining ground in Africa despite the
most intense efforts and huge expenditures on the part of Christian
missions. This fact speaks volumes for the contrast between the intrinsic
merits of the respective faiths. Christianity is so weak that despite so
many Christian schools, hospitals, organized missionary work and the
support of the colonial governments, Africans seldom embrace it warmly
and even those who do, are soon disillusioned and begin to renounce it.
On the other hand, although Islam is neither being presented to them in
its full beauty nor are most of the Muslims worthy examples of Islamic
behavior and we have very few trained missionaries, the only Islam these
Africans know is the influence of simple-minded, mostly uneducated
Muslims through personal contact only. But even that much is sufficient
to attract the Africans, Thus I yearned to organize a planned program for
the dissemination of Islam there, but alas, my hands have been tied.
Nevertheless I can never forget this cause which inshallah I will try to
serve as best I can even though placed at such a distance as I am.
You would not be surprised by Working Islamic
Review's support of Habib Bourguiba if you knew the school of thought to
which this magazine belongs. They are our own countrymen and we know them
only too well. They belong to the Lahore group of the followers of Mirza
Ghulam Ahmad Qadiani who had the audacity to lay a false claim to the
prophethood. The main body of his followers at regular print openly
proclaims that Mirza as a Prophet and those who reject his claim as
"Kaffrs" or unbelievers. The son of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad
(Bashir-ud-din Mahmud) leads this group. The splinter sect who controls
The Islamic Review at the Woking Mosque in England hesitates to declare
outright that the Mirza was a prophet but only "Nabi" in a
metaphorical sense but they hail him as the Promised Messiah, Mujaddid
and Mehdi.
Both these groups and Qadianis were great favorites
with the British government during their rule over the undivided Indo-Pak
sub-continent. They neither enjoyed nor only tacit support but positive
protection and encouragement from British imperialism. Inside the country
they were favored with responsible posts and outside the country, the
most trusted loyal and obedient servants of His Majesty's empire. Their
"Islamic" propaganda was tolerated only because it was so
harmless and innocuous and their missions served as an effective disguise
for their numerous and nameless services to Imperialism. Maulana Muhammad
Ali, who translated the Holy Quran into English, was the leader of the
Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement which established the "Woking Mission and
Literary Trust" in England and publishes The Islamic Review.
These people spare no effort to show themselves off
as enlightened advanced and progressive liberals according to Western
standards. That is why they enthusiastically acclaim every step adopted
in Pakistan or other Muslim lands to "reform" Islam. Recently
our family laws have been "reformed" to make them more
acceptable to Western criteria, which those who control The Islamic
Review loudly applaud.
Your assessment of the Christian universities in
Beirut and Cairo is quite correct. You will be interested to know that in
Pakistan the Christian schools and colleges have been producing similar
results for the last century and a half. Our social elite, economically
privileged and top Government servants entrust their children when only
four or five years old to these institutions. They learn to speak English
instead of Urdu and indeed most of them cannot even converse or write in
the national languages. They are completely alienated from their faith
and cultural traditions. They celebrate Christmas and ignore the Eid
festivals. They are ignorant even of the rudiments of Islam. When they
reach adulthood, they become our leaders, rulers and builders of our
destinies.
The impact of our national educational system, which
is our heritage of British domination, is no less devastating. Although
the Government schools do not convert Muslims to Christianity, the
practical result of its secular materialistic atmosphere produces
ignorance; apathy and indifference, The majority of our educated youth
remains Muslims not because of this education but inspite of it. Since
you are a newcomer into the fold of Islam, I want you to understand the
real reasons why Muslims are becoming modernized and de-Islamized and why
their tongues and pens are serving the cause of Kufr".
I feel deeply worried over the problems you are
facing. I fully realize the ordeals, which a person must endure when he
or she embraces Islam in a land of Kufr and a woman faces a
thousand-fold, more trials than a man. Through bitter personal
experience, you have come to know how tolerant and broadminded these
moderns Westerners are!' You have also encountered the type of people who
are representing Muslim countries in foreign lands. Although extremely
difficult times are ahead of you, I think these experiences will stand
you in good stead in this world and surely will earn you a lasting reward
in the Hereafter.
I believe that if you had accepted my invitation to
come to Lahore, you could have avoided these troubles and I could have helped
you in every possible way but even in America if you think I can render
any practical service to you, please tell me frankly and I will not
hesitate to do whatever I can. May Allah in His abounding mercy help you
and grant you patience and perseverance.
With all my salaams,
Your brother in Islam,
ABUL ALA
|
Thirteenth
letter in Oct9 ,1961
New York, October9 ,1961
Dear Maulana Maudoodi,
Assalaam alaikum.
Thank you for your letter of September29 th.
Every Friday noon I attend the Muslim Students
Association at Columbia University for Jumaa Salat. Each week a different
student takes his turn delivering his own Khutbah (sermon) and leading
the prayer as Imam. As I am female and so could not deliver the Khutbah
in person, when my turn came, a kind student from the United Arab
Republic offered to deliver my Khutbah on my behalf. Entitled "Can
Islam Be Reconciled with the Spirit of the Twentieth century?" I
analyzed the seven most important proposals for "modernizing"
Islam as repeatedly advocated by the "Progressives." These
were: (1) the permanent abolition of the Khalifate: (2) the abolition of
the Shariah and its replacement with modern western secular legal
systems; (3) the substitution of the concept of universal Muslim brotherhood
(Ummah) with territorial or racial nationalism; (4) official translations
of Quran without Arabic text and the replacement of the Arabic script
with the Roman alphabet; (5) the view that raising the material standard
of living to Western levels through industrialization should be the
supreme goal of the Government to which all other considerations must be
sacrificed or subordinated; (6) the so-called "emancipation" of
women; (7) the adoption of Western clothing and living habits. In my
Khutbah I showed how each of these proposals, if carried to their logical
conclusions, would bring about the complete destruction of Islamic
civilization. However, the students violently disagreed. They told me
that as soon as they completed their studies in America and returned home,
they would spare no efforts to impose all these reforms. One student from
Afghanistan assured me that what his country needed more than anything
also was another Ataturk! Most Muslim students whom I have met share the
same view and I must confess it sometimes makes me feel quite despondent.
Enclosed is the manuscript of my Khutbah[3]. Please
let me know what you think of it.
Yours in Islam,
MARYAM JAMEELAH
[3] See my essay " Can Islam be Reconciled with
the spirit of the twentieth century? " in my book Isalm Versus the
West
|
Fourteenth
letter in Oct24 ,1961
Lahore, October24 ,1961
My dear sister-in-Islam,
Assalaam alaikum,
Thank you for your letter of October9 th and the
manuscript of your Khutbah.
Your description of the Muslim students you have met
at Colombia University is exactly according to my expectations. I have
made a deep study of the system of education through which the rising
generation is passing here and in the Arab world. The inevitable
consequences of this system result in the student's deep prejudice
against Islam and its historical and cultural heritage. At the first
opportunity they are eager to mutilate its shape and distort its spirit.
They are mentally degraded and morally debased. When they return home,
they capture the most conspicuous and powerful positions in our national
life, which is the major cause of the unrelenting warfare between the
rulers and the ruled. But I assure you, there is a bright side, too, and
from these very same schools, colleges and universities, there are
students with a deep yearning for the establishment of an Islamic order.
The same is the case in the Arab world, Turkey, Indonesia and all other
Muslim countries. These students, particularly those belonging the Jamiat
ul Tulaba, keep in close contact with me and I have great hopes for them.
Unfortunately, these students have slim opportunity to go to study in
America or Europe because the patronage, which makes such visits
possible, is reserved for the spoilt sons of the soil. That is why you have
not met such youth in New York.
I wanted to expedite the decision about the printing
of your novel, Ahmad Khalil, in your favor but alas, only a few days ago,
Mian Tufail Muhammad, the Managing Director of Islamic Publications was
arrested and is now being imprisoned under the Public Safety Act. This
Act, the legacy of British rule, enables a person to be arbitrarily
imprisoned without trial. The authorities simply seize him and put him
behind bars as long as they please. Mian Tufail Muhammad has been a close
associate of mine for the last twenty years. As a result of his detention
for daring to publish a pamphlet criticizing the Family Law Ordinance,
all business of Islamic Publications has been dislocated indefinitely.
I have studied your Friday Khutbah carefully and
assure you that what you have said are precisely the views I have been
preaching continuously for more than thirty years. That is why the
modernists fear me as a "danger." I am amazed how a girl born
and brought up in America has been able to attain such an accurate
insight into the problem. What you said in your Khutbah couldn't but win
my deepest admiration and I only pray to Allah that he may give you more
and more wisdom and steadfastness to expound and promote the cause of
Islam. With salaams and best wishes,
Your brother-in-Islam,
ABUL ALA
|
Fifteenth
letter in Nov8 ,1961
New York, November8 ,1961
Dear Maulana Maudoodi,
Assalaam alaikum wa rahmatullah wa barakatuh.
Thank you for your letter of October24 th.
I am glad that you oppose the apologetic, polemical
approach as much as I do. When I first started reading what Islamic
literature was available in English back in1953 , my Muslim friends and
acquaintances all urged me to read Sir Syed Ameer Ali's The Spirit of
Islam. I did so and when I finished, I was convinced it was one of the
worst books about Islam I had ever read. My Muslim friends were amazed by
this negative reaction and could not understand why I did not like the
book.
Take, for example, the question of polygamy. Even
Muslims like Dr. Hoballah, who directs the, Islamic Center in Washington,
told me that Islam permits polygamy only under rare exceptional
circumstances. Some modernists even go so far as to interpret the verse
of the Quran which says that you cannot do equal justice to more than one
wife however much you may wish to do so as an absolute prohibition of
plural marriage. Typical of the apologetic viewpoint is the following
quote from Muhammad Ali Lahore's commentary on his English translation of
Holy Qur'an (pp.187 -188): " Surah IV: 3 permits polygamy only under
certain circumstances ... It would be thus clear that the permission to
have more wives than one was given under the peculiar circumstances of
the Muslim society then existing... It may be added here that polygamy in
Islam is both in theory and in practice an exception and not a
rule...".
The strongest argument against such sophistries is
that that none of the reputable commentators on the Holy Qur'an in all
Muslim history ever expounded such an interpretation of this verse until
the Muslim world fell under the domination of European imperialism.
Nowhere in the Qur'an or Hadith literature do I find polygamy condemned
as an absolute evil in itself nor does the question ever arise of the
necessity to restrict it to exceptional circumstances. The exact words of
the verse in question (IV:129 ) are:“ Ye will not be able to
deal equally between your wives however much ye wish to do so. But turn
not all together from (the other wife) leaving her as in suspense. If you
do good and keep from evil, lo! Allah is ever Forgiving,
Merciful”.
In other words, because no two human beings are
exactly alike, a husband cannot possibly regard several different wives
with equal affection but this verse does not prohibit him from plural
marriage because he cannot help but love one wife more than the others.
No! The Quran only enjoins justice and kindness for all of them and
exhorts the husband to deal with them with as fairly as possible.
Marmaduke Pickthall's introductory notes to his English translation of
the Holy Quran interpret much more faithfully the verse dealing with this
subject. He writes:" In Islam sanctity has never been identified
with celibacy. For Christendom the strictest religious ideal has been
celibacy; monogamy is already a concession to human nature. For Muslims
monogamy is the ideal and polygamy is the concession to human nature.
Having set in his marriage to Khadijah a great example of monogamy
marriage, the Prophet was also to set a great example of polygamy
marriage by following which men of that temperament could live righteous
lives. Islam did not institute polygamy. It limited an already existing
institution by restricting the number of a man's legal wives to four and
by giving to every woman a legal personality and legal rights which had
to be respected and making every man legally responsible for his conduct
towards every woman. Whether polygamy or monogamy should prevail in a
particular country or historical period is a matter of social and
economic convenience".
I wonder if you read in the April-May 1961 issue of
The voice of Islam published by the Jamiat-ul-Falah in Karachi the essay,
"Punishments in Islam" by Muhammad Shibli which at once won my
admiration for such a clear and straight-forward presentation of the
logical reasons why Islam has prescribed such allegedly
"barbaric" punishments as stoning to death for adultery,
amputation of the hand for theft, public flogging for fornication and
wine-drinking, etc. Ninety-nine out of a hundred contemporary Muslim
writers would try to explain away the Quranic penal law as obsolete for
the modern age. Typical of these people was the angry letter to the
Editor in the August issue of the same magazine castigating Muhammad
Shibli for not regarding the secular Western legal systems as superior to
the Shariah.
As President Habib Bourguiba Declared: "Up to
now Islam has been understood according to the way it was interpreted by
the Ulema, a static interpretation kept unchanged throughout all these
decadent centuries. That old interpretation is outdated ... In other
words, the modernists mean to tell us that all our Mujaddids throughout
all the previous twelve hundred years were thoroughly mistaken about the
true meaning or the Holy Quran and only now for the first time have these
modernists attained the correct perspective!
These are some of the reasons why I consider the
apologetic approach the height of intellectual dishonesty, moral
cowardiness, spiritual blasphemy and hypocrisy.
When these "progressive" Muslim students
tell me that their countries cannot afford to be religious until economic
development and a higher standard of living is first achieved, I cannot
help but recall the words of Jesus Christ (peace be upon him) as recorded
in the New Testament when he told his followers: "Seek ye first the
kingdom of heaven and then all these (material) things shall be added
unto you…". But the "Progressives" would have
it the other way around!. They assure us that after they attain material
prosperity, they will have more time to concentrate on spiritual matters.
But experience shows that this is never the case, because the person who
adopts that attitude becomes so preoccupied with materialistic pursuits
that the spiritual side of life is entirely forgotten.
The incredible reasoning to which these people
resort is illustrated when my Arabic teacher at the mosque in New York
told me that Kemal Ataturk prohibited the Turks from performing Haj
because the economic situation was so desperate and people were starving
so that the Government could not permit any capital taken out of the
country. "This was entirely justified," argued my teacher,
"and in conformity to the spirit of Islam because Haj is obligatory
only for those who can afford it." What he failed to mention was
that Ataturk's decree banned only the pilgrimage to Mecca! All other
travel abroad, especially to Western Europe and America, was not only
permitted but also encouraged with official patronage.
At the meetings of Tile Muslim Students Association
at Columbia University, the favorite target is the traditional Islamic
education such as that imparted at al-Azhar, Deoband or other lesser
Madrassahs, which in their emphasis on memorization, are criticized for
stifling all intellectual independence and creative and original thought.
These students are blissfully unaware that the criticism with which they
attack the traditional madrassah is a thousand times truer in the case of
themselves! Among these western-educated students, I cannot find the
least trace of intellectual independence or creative and original
thought. They never do their own thinking but merely repeat in the most
mechanical way what they are taught like parrots! That is why though
American universities like Columbia may teem with students of Muslim
origin, one seeks in vain among them for any true scholars.
The literal meaning of "Islam" is
submission to the will of Allah. It is not possible to become close to
Allah without submitting one's self to observe His law and follow His
guidance in practical daily life. Such a person will never doubt that
wisdom (as did one student at Colombia University who told me it is quite
permissible now for Muslims to eat pork because since breeders today know
how to raise pigs hygienically, the danger of disease has been
eliminated! The true Muslim will never discard any Quranic injunction as
no longer relevant to present-day life. His supreme goal in life is to
live the way Allah wants him to live and nothing will sadden him more
than displeasing his Lord. He will not regard the law as a burden but as
a joy. It is at this juncture where Orthodox Judaism and Islam meet on
common ground. Every day in synagogue the pious Jew recites the following
commandments of the Law of Moses:" Thou shalt love thy Lord, thy God
with all thy heart, with all thy soul and with all thy might. And these
words which I (God) command you (Moses) shall be upon thy heart. Thou
shalt teach them diligently to thy children and thou shalt speak of them
when thou art sitting in thy house, when thou guest on a journey, when
thou lies down and when thou rise up. Thou shalt bind them for a sign
upon thy hand and they shalt be for frontlets between thine eyes. Thou
shalt inscribe them upon the doorposts of thy house and upon thy
gates" (Deuteronomy VI:4 -9).
On the other hand, the modernists, instead of
submitting to Allah, expect Allah to submit to them!
I am enclosing the editorial of the July 1961 issue
of The Islamic Review in praise of the new Pakistani Family Laws
Ordinance. Please comment.
Yours in Islam,
MARYAM JAMEELAH
_________________
|
Sixteenth
letter in Dec16 ,1961
Lahore, December16 ,1961
Dear Maryam Jameelah,
Assalaam alaikum wa rahmatullah.
Thank you for your letter dated November8 th, as
well as the enclosed editorial on the Family Laws Ordinance in the
Islamic Review. Under separate cover I also received the manuscript of
your essay, "The Significance of the Taqbir"[4].
I have carefully read this article and agree to each
and every word of it. The Holy Prophet has categorically prohibited
Muslims from drawing pictures or sculpturing statues of animals or human
beings. History bears witness to the fact that picture making is the
first step towards "shirk" and idolatry. Idolatry does not
necessarily mean to perform ritualistic worship before an object. When
pictures of leaders and famous personalities are prominently hung and
distributed everywhere, it surely results in mental slavery and godly
reverence for those persons and a firm imprint "greatness"
(instead of Allah's greatness) upon their minds and souls. This is
certainly a form of idol-worship.
When Russia captured Poland, thousands of Stalin's
pictures were imported into every town and village of the land. Nazi
soldiers used to wear Hitler's photo on their bosoms and if they were
injured and breathed their last in hospitals, they were found kissing
these portraits and placing them on their eyes. Pictures on coins and
postage stamps of national leaders are symbols of their worldly
sovereignty and when their pictures are shown on the cinema screen, the
audience is required to stand up at once. If all this is not Shirk then
what else is it? The Nazis, the Fascists, the Communists, the Kamalists
and the Nasserites have demonstrated the uses, or more appropriately, the
abuses of pictures and demonstrated their disastrous consequences so
clearly that I do not think that there should exist the least doubt in
any sane mind why Islam bans pictures and statues.
How can anybody who knows the difference between
Tawheed and shirk ever tolerate picture making when its results are so
glaringly manifest today? After all, why did Khrushchev in his denunciation
of Stalin at once order the removal of pictures and statues of Stalin
from all public places? Does it not mean that Khrushchev was aware of how
the divinity of this false god was engraved on the minds of Russians from
these very pictures? From earliest times, the picture has served as the
greatest vehicle for spreading immorality and lewdness in the world.
Wine, music, dancing, indecent literature, picture and statue have always
been are now more than ever before, the most potent instigators of adultery
and fornication. If the modernists in Muslim lands insist upon indulgence
in such practices, despite the clearest prohibitions of the Holy Prophet,
in order to propitiate the whims of the "times" and be praised
as "up-to-date", they cannot do so without violating the values
and principles of Islam. How any such persons can persuade themselves and
others that inspite of this basic change, they are as good Muslims as
ever is beyond my comprehension.
I completely agree with all you have written about apologetics.
There are two underlying causes for this sort of reasoning. Either it
results from faulty understanding or ignorance of Islam or it is the
natural result of the defeatist mentality, which blindly accepts the
values of the dominant culture as the supreme criterion. Consequently,
Western civilization has become the judge of the merits and
"faults" of Islam - not vice versa. The pioneer of apologetics
in the Indo-Pak, sub-continent was Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan and his
colleague, Chiragh Ali. Later Sir Sayyid Ameer Ali followed suit. (Ameer
Ali and Chiragh Ali were both Shiahs) Finally the entire Aligarh School
raised its chorus to tender apologies on behalf of Islam to the West.
Muhammad Ali Jauhar (a follower of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and the translator
of the Holy Quran into English with whom some Western authors confuse
with his name-sake, Muhammad Ali Jauhar (who was a renowned statesman and
freedom-fighter) substantially adhered to the views of the Aligarh
School. In Egypt, Shaikh Muhammad Abduh adopted a similar line of
compromise and thus opened the door wide for the westernizers in the
Arabic-speaking world who came after him.
Once they began to proceed along this path, they
found it almost impossible to set any limits for their extravagant
sophistries. Jihad was interpreted as only a "defensive" war.
Islamic teachings pertaining to war prisoners (slaves) were given the
most strange and absurd meanings. Polygamy was halfheartedly conceded as
only an emergency measure, the sooner declared unlawful, the better.
Miracles mentioned in the Holy Quran were either denied outright or
fantastic attempts were made to explain them away as natural phenomena.
Angels were said to be merely "forces of nature" and Revelation
(Wahy) the subjective result of extraordinary mental activity projected
outwards resembling the hallucinations of the insane. Vanquished
politically, the Muslims suffered no less serious defeat in the realm of
thought and because of their mental paralysis, they could not grasp the
guidance of Allah to His last Prophet.
What you wrote about polygamy was absolutely
correct. I would only add that verse 3 of Surah IV was not revealed to
legalize polygamy. Divine law never prohibited polygamy and the Shariahs
of all the prophets allowed it. Most of the Prophets had more than one
wife. Before this verse descended upon the Holy Prophet, he had three
wives (Saudah, Ayesha and Umm Salamah - upon whom be the peace of Allah).
Most of the companions of the Prophet were also polygamous. Thus there
was no need to legalize an already lawful and well-recognized practice.
The verse in question was revealed when many women in Medina had been
widowed during the battle of Uhud and children left fatherless.
Confronted with this problem, the Muslims were directed to solve it by
dint of an already established and prevalent institution and to take two,
three or even four wives from among the widows. As a result, the widows
and orphans, instead of being left derelicts, were amicably absorbed
among the various families. If this guidance from God, implied any new
legislation, it is not permission for polygamy, but the restriction of
the number of wives to four and a further stipulation that if a husband
is not doing justice to all his wives, he must either treat them fairly or
he should have only one wife. These two above-mentioned injunctions were
not known nor recognized by the pagan Arabs and the present Bible also
fails to mention them.
The people who are trying to reinterpret Islam, I do
not know whom they are trying to deceive - Allah or their own selves? But
I assure you that this impious fraud cannot last long. Because of their
political hold, they try to thrust their views down the throats of the
Muslim common folk and the Western press is patting them on the back. But
there is a strong wave of resentment among the common people and public
opinion in all Muslim lands against them is so intense as you cannot
imagine while in America. When you go to any Muslim country, you will see
that not only the simple-minded but even a majority of the
modern-educated section is sick and tired of these novel interpretations
of Islam which are an outrage against both its form and spirit. Those
youth you meet at Columbia University are not the true representatives of
Muslim public opinion. They speak only for a tiny minority who is
regarded as a liability rather than an asset by their co-religionists.
These persons, after returning to their native lands, live like
foreigners. Their habits, tastes, behavior and thinking are all diametrically
opposed to their fellow-Muslims. They do not mix with others and others
do not mix with them. They are a native foreign race which was bred in
the Muslim lands as, the by-product of European colonial rule. Since they
know that they will never be able to persuade their people to adopt
secularism by democratic means, they try to foist their alien ideologies
on their unwilling subjects through high-handed despotism. Appreciative
voices are encouraging them from the Western horizon that "the East
is not yet ready for democracy." But these dictators have not the
slightest appreciation for democratic ideals. These are the victims of
the worst type of slavery. The West applauds them loudly only because of
their blind faith in Western materialism and because their belief in
Islam has been utterly undermined.
As for the editorial you enclosed in your last
letter from The Islamic Review, on the Family Laws Ordinance, you may be
interested to know that as soon as the decree took effect last March7 th,
I along with other Ulema representing all recognized schools of thought,
issued a joint statement criticizing in detail each and every section of
the Ordinance and showing its repugnancy to the Quran and Sunnah.
Instructions from the Government were given to the press not to publish
it. Despite the prohibition, some persons dared to publish it anyhow.
They were interrogated and harassed in various ways and some even
imprisoned under the Public Safety Act. Meanwhile, eulogies on these
"reforms" are being widely publicized at home and abroad. You
have also asked me to comment on the editorial. Now I would only say that
this fear of criticism on the part of the upholders of the Ordinance is
sufficient comment in itself.
In conclusion, I must apologize again for my inordinate
delay in replying through not without reasons. With Salaams and best
wishes,
Yours in Islam,
ABUL ALA
[4] See " The Significance of the Taqbir"
in the second revised and enlarged edition of my book, Islam versus the
West, published by Muhammad Yusuf Khan, Lahor,1968
_________________
|
Seventeen
letter in Jan25 ,1962
New York. January25 , 1962 (Shaban19 ,1381 )
Dear Maulana Maudoodi,
Assalaam alaikum wa rahmatullah.
Thank you so much for your highly informative letter
of December 16th in which you took such pains to answer all my questions
in the most satisfactory manner.
Several weeks ago Zafrullah Khan came to give a
special lecture at our mosque here in New York. Originally I had planned
to attend but at the last minute, just couldn't bring myself to go. As
you must know only too well, Zafrullah Khan is one of the most prominent
leaders of the Ahmadiyya. Of the two branches, I think the Lahoris are
more dangerous than the main group at Rabwah. The Qadianis are frank and
out-spoken in their acceptance of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as Prophet
condemning all those Muslims who reject his claim as Kaffirs, and thus
are clearly outside the pale of Islam. The Lahori Ahmadiyyas, on the
other hand, try to pose as perfectly good orthodox Muslims while at the
same time propagating their heretical views in an underhanded way.
Zafrullah Khan, I believe, belongs to the latter group. Although he likes
to pose as an orthodox Muslim, he showed his true collars when he refused
as a high Government official to participate in the funeral prayer at the
death of Qaid-e-Azam just because the Imam was not a Qadiani!
At a small shop in New York, which specializes in
Oriental books and where Islamic books printed in Pakistan are available,
I found an excellent little book on the Qadiani movement published by
Shaikh Muhammad Ashraf in Lahore entitled, His Holiness: a Fearless and
Frank Exposition of the Hollowness of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad's Claim to
Prophethood by "Phoenix" with a very good introduction by Zafar
Ali Khan. This book provides the most illuminating study of the Mirza I
have ever read in English, which includes copious quotations from his
writings. After reading about his life, I wonder how it was possible for
such otherwise intelligent scholars like Muhammad Ali Lahori to accept
his fantastic claims unless they chose to follow him for some personal or
material gain. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad struck me as a man completely lacking
in any moral sensitivity and of very mediocre intellectual stature. There
is no doubt in my mind that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was insane. "His
visions (or more accurately, his hallucinations) assure him that God in
heaven glorifies him and invests him with the highest of decorations. He
is king of the Aryans. Jai Singh Bahadur (a Sikh name meaning victorious
lion) and Lord Krishna. Mary is one of his names in which character he,
or rather she, remains big with Jesus for a period of not more than ten
months. Then Jesus born is none else than the Mirza himself!"
(Pp.191 -192) Isn't that proof he was a madman? I don't know why his
relatives failed to recognize that and commit him to the asylum. If Mirza
Ghulam Ahmad had been locked up in the mental hospital, he would have had
no opportunity to spread his mischief. Then you would not have been
imprisoned during the Punjab disturbances in 1953nor would the death
sentence ever have been meted out to you. If Mirza Ghulam Ahmad were
alive today, his delusions of grandeur and persecution would be quickly
diagnosed by the medical world as schizophrenia-paranoid type. Every line
of his writings indicates his malady. As "Phoenix" writes:
"Ghulam Ahmad, the prophet, was afflicted with persecution mania in
an aggravated form. His claims keep pace with his sense of persecution.
The more he feels persecuted the higher and higher his claims go on
soaring. The insane persevere in their delusions the more they are
crossed. Had the Muslim community let him alone and dismissed his claim
as lunacy, his malady, if it were really one, would not have assumed the
proportions it did." (Pp.185 -186) In the end, he sees in a vision
that he has in fact become God Almighty and denounced those who refused
to attest to the truth of his mission as "bastards". Of all the
voluminous volumes of books Mirza Ghulam Ahmad wrote, I haven't heard of
any translated into English except a small work entitled The Teachings of
Islam. They must be perfectly, aware how people would ridicule such
absurdities and gibberish that masquerade as "revelations." But
I think that his books, particularly his Haqiqat ul Wahy (The Truth About
Revelation), certainly must be reprinted in Urdu and translated into
English and other European languages, not for the general public but for
the medical world. Haqiqat ul Wahy would be of great interest to students
of abnormal psychology. Psychiatrists should regard it as a valuable
document on schizophrenia which provides the professionally trained with
first-hand knowledge how the paranoid mind works. Viewed in this light,
an objective study of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad's books could help scientific
research in mental diseases.
In one of the books you sent me some time back, you
explained how the nationalists of Asia and Africa are perpetuating the
same system as their former imperialist masters. The only difference is
that the hands are changed. With the anti-Muslim riots at Aligarh and
other cities in India where many innocent Muslims have been killed, this
fact was immediately brought home. As an atheist and a firm believer in
Socialism, Nehru follows the same materialistic creed as his former
masters. He does not hesitate to use exactly the same kind of oppression
as the British on his own people. If he is not himself guilty of
instigating the massacres of the Muslims in India, he has done nothing to
try to stop them or punish those responsible. The guiding principle of
Western-style nationalism is hatred of minority groups. Nationalism
decrees that all citizens must be of the same race speak the same
language and are subjected to the same laws; it cannot tolerate
differences. Conformity must be imposed at any cost. This principle has
run rampant all over the world; we have witnessed it in the Soviet Union
in her treatment of non-Russians, we have seen what happened to the Jews
under Nazism and the plight of the Arabs in "Israel". Now the
same tragedy is being repeated in India. I wonder if Nehru is taking his
lesson from Nazism and Zionism in dispossessing the Indian Muslims of
their property, driving them out of the country and now killing them in
large numbers. How this contrasts with the tolerance of the Millet system
in the Islamic state where protected religious minorities are allowed to
develop their own cultural life and live according to their own laws
unmolested.
Your explanation why Islam prohibits pictures was
extremely enlightening and logical. I have always believed that there is
an intimate relationship between great art and religious faith. To me,
the great mosques like that of lbn Tulun in Cairo, the mosque of Cordoba,
those in Istanbul and their many counterparts throughout the Muslim
world, the exquisite calligraphy which adorns the finest copies of the
Quran, the rugs, textiles, pottery and glassware are tangible expressions
of the spiritual values of Islam. Did not the Holy Prophet himself
declare that God is beauty and delights in the beautiful? When Islamic
civilization was at its peak, art was not something to be hoarded in
museums but an integral part of even the most humble Muslim's life. Art
seems to have no place in the daily life of Western man. Western clothing
and ultra-modern architecture is the ugliest things I have ever seen. The
so-called "non- objective" or "abstract" painting so
fashionable now a days, bears a striking resemblance to the pictures
created by schizophrenics in the mental hospitals. What these paintings
say is: "Life has no meaning and no purpose. There is no God. All is
chaos and nothingness." I have no doubt that the decadence of modern
art is intimately related to the so-called "philosophy of
change." If everything must continually be in a state of flux, then
it logically follows that there is no stability in anything; all must be
limited to a particular time and place and there is nothing of permanent
value. All great art must be based on implicit faith in enduring moral
and aesthetic truths. I think that the corruption in modern art, as in
all other fields of culture, stems directly from the rejection of
transcendental ideals. Without the concept of absolute truth, it is not
possible for a man to achieve virtue. How can anybody attain dignity and
nobility of character if he expects what is cherished today to be
obsolete tomorrow?"
The little I have read about Shah Wali Ullah puzzles
me very much. On the one hand I read that many Muslim scholars in the
lndo-Pak sub-continent consider him second in greatness only to
al-Ghazzali. On the other hand, it is said that his masterpiece,
Hujjatullah al Baligha provided the inspiration for the westernizing
modernist movement by urging the supremacy of rationalism, encouraging
the translation of the Holy Quran into foreign languages (he himself
translated the Quran into Persian), and rejecting all the so-called
"Arab" elements of Islam as relevant only for the particular
time and place and primitive society of Muhammad's day, it is also claimed
that Shah Wali Ullah rejected the authority of the four Orthodox schools
and wanted to formulate a new legal system in conformity to the needs of
the Muslims in India. He is said to have declared only the purely
religious, spiritual portions of the Quran and Sunnah were binding and
the rest covering various aspects of worldly life, relevant only for
seventh-century Arabia. Now this is what I fail to understand: Shah Wali
Ullah lived before the impact of British colonialism. According to the
little I have read about him, his philosophy provided the justification
and foundation for the so-called Muslim apologetics, which came after
him. Did he formulate his ideas independently or if not, what were the
outside influences upon him? In his book The Religious Thought of Sir
Sayyid Ahmad Khan recently published by the Institute of Islamic Culture,
Lahore, Bashir Ahmad Dar says that Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan constantly
quoted Shah Wali Ullah to sanction his views.
Sir Sayyid Ahmad's Khan's apologetics mutilated the
teachings Of Islam beyond recognition, and exerted the decisive influence
upon Sayyid Ameer Ali as well as Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. Even Allama
lqbal could not entirely escape his influence, which is particularly
evident in his Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam.
I know that Allama lqbal was the greatest Muslim
poet of the20 th century some of whose works, even in English
translation, are most inspiring but where exactly did he stand? Some
scholars insist that he was a modernist par excellence and in support of
this view, they can quote copiously from The Reconstruction of Religious
Thought in Islam which tries to interpret Islamic doctrine according to
the criteria of various contemporary European philosophers and
enthusiastically praised the Chemist experiment in Turkey. Yet in his
Persian and Urdu poetry, he criticized Western culture and its founders
most severely and castigated those Muslims who abandoned their heritage
to copy the Westerners. No skeptic or cynic, who a modernist must be,
could write on Islamic themes, as lqbal did, with such pure and noble
feelings. What I cannot understand about Allama lqbal is, why he
contradicts himself in so many places? I can't believe that he was really
hypocritical; his voice rings much too sincere for that. Then what is the
explanation?
Could you also tell me something about Maulana Abul
Kalam Azad (1888-1958) as there is only one book I know of in English
dealing with him by Professor Humayun Kabir which I found in the New York
Public Library but it is not adequate. All I know about him was that he
was a freedom fighter closely associated with Mahatma Gandhi, President
of the Congress Party for almost two decades and then after India's
independence, held the post of Education Minister until his death. I also
read that he was a learned Alim, a master of Urdu prose and wrote a
highly controversial commentary on the Holy Quran. Unfortunately, none of
his writings are yet available in English translation.
I would be most grateful for any light you can throw
on the subjects raised in this letter.
Yours in Islam,
MARYAM JAMEELAH
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Eighteenth
letter in Feb10 ,1962
Lahore, February10 ,1962
Dear Maryam Jameelah,
Assalaam alaikum wa rahmatullah.
Thank you for your letter of January25 th.
The views about Mirza Ghulam Ahmad expressed by you
are absolutely correct. Even for the sake of argument if we suppose that
a prophet could appear after Muhammad (peace be upon him) - although this
supposition would be quite contrary to Quran and Hadith - yet when we
pause to think how a man of such low moral and mental stature has been
crowned as a prophet, we can easily understand the depth of degradation
to which the concept of Prophethood has fallen in our times. Most of the
books written by this imposter not only remain un-translated into English
but their reprint in their Urdu original also is not ventured by his
followers. The circulation of his writings is carefully guarded and
withheld from the general public because the Qadianis have come to know
their absurdity and repulsiveness. You have drawn a true picture of
Lahore Ahmadiyya and the Qadianis at Rabwah but your impression that Sir
Zafrullah Khan belongs to the Lahori group is mistaken. He is a confirmed
Qadiani and believes the Mirza to be a prophet.
Your analysis of the Indian Government's attitude
towards Muslims is quite true. Generally speaking, modern political
leaders in Asia and Africa are freedom loving only in the sense that they
do not wish to see the reins of political power in foreign hands. But in
every other aspect of thought and behavior, they are faithful slaves of
their former masters and they invariably follow in their footsteps. Few
of them possess free and brave minds. Nehru has a complete soul of an
Englishman within him. He is an Indian in his outward physical appearance
only.
As for Shah Wali Ullah, he was a great and true
scholar of Islam first and last. I cannot guarantee that I endorse his
each and every word but there is no doubt that he was a first-rank
muhaddith (Traditionalist) and Fuqeeh (Jurist). In the Indo-Pakistan
sub-continent he was the pioneer in propagating knowledge of Hadith and
every group of our Ulema is indebted to him for dissemination of the Holy
Prophet's teachings. Due to his authoritative and respectable position
every "reformist" here tries to exploit his name, tears his
words out of context and distorts them to serve his own ends. All his
books are either in Arabic or Persian and any person conversant with his
ideas know fully well how dishonest these support-seekers are! They are
putting strange and fantastic constructions upon his words and are trying
to dig out such ideas as are nowhere found in his writings. Shah Wali
Ullah never advocated the "supremacy of rationalism" and he never
wanted to eliminate the "Arab elements" from Islam. He was a
great admirer of all four orthodox schools of Fiqh and did not aspire to
evolve a "new legal system" to the exclusion of the former
ones. However, seeing the rigidity and antagonism between the time-honored
schools, he had expressed a wish that it would be better to evolve by a
synthetically process a new legal system out of Hanafi and Shafi Fiqh
especially. But he never went beyond that.
I do not deny the fact that Allama lqbal aptly
criticized the West. and did a great service to the cause of Islam
especially through his poetry. But unfortunately, as you already pointed
out, his writings are not free from contra. Firstly, lqbal had been
constantly passing through different stages of mental evolution during
his life span and only in the last years of his life had been able to
form in his mind a clear and unalloyed conception of Islam. In his
earlier life, many extraneous ideas and influences were freely
intermingled with his Islamic notions. Secondly, during a major portion
of his life, instead or being a Muslim adhering to strictly cosmopolitan
views, there was always a tinge of "Muslim nationalism" from
which he could not escape. That is why he felt hesitant in condemning
Muslim leaders and modernist thinkers. Sometimes, due to poetic license,
he went to the extremes of rationalizing and supporting even their
un-Islamic activities. Thirdly, you should bear in mind that many
historical and political factors were at work to sustain deep-rooted
sympathies for Turkey among the Indo-Pakistan Muslims. These Muslims,
after being enslaved by British imperialism, had a sentimental attachment
to this last vestige of their vanished glory and defended it in every
possible way. As a reward for what Kemal Ataturk had done to save this
tottering Muslim State, Muslim scholars and thinkers here were prepared
to condone Kemal's anti-Islamic and manifestly blasphemous deeds. With
this mental and emotional background, lqbal also until 1930 went on
offering apologies and explanations for Kemal Ataturk's
"reforms" and trying to find for them a place within the
Islamic order. But at last even our poet's patience seemed to be
over-taxed and he began to condemn Kemalist innovations openly.
Until1921 , Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad was an
enthusiastic exponent of Islamic revival and Khilafat movement. But
afterwards he turned a complete somersault in thought and action, so much
so that people began to rub their eyes to make sure whether he was the
same Azad or by some process of metamorphic a new person had been born
within him. Abdul Kalam Azad was now a hundred per cent Indian
nationalist and a vociferous protagonist of a single Indian nationhood of
Muslims and non-Muslims. He assimilated the so- called "unity of
religions" concept expounded by some Hindu philosophers and the
Western theory of Darwinian evolution. The imprint of these theories can
clearly be seen in his Tafseer on Quran.
Islam engenders within us a spiritual refinement and
an aesthetic taste, which enables us to shun ugliness and to do
everything beautifully. Atheism and materialism, on the other hand,
pervert human tastes and make men adore and glorify ugliness. That is why
under the spell of present materialistic civilization, in every branch of
art and literature, degeneration has set in.
Now I take leave with Salaams and best wishes.
Yours in Islam,
ABUL ALA
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